Just Two Weeks
by MaggieMerc
Summary: It was supposed to be two weeks in Africa. Arizona could do that in her sleep. Then things happened.
1. Part 1

**Title:** Just Two Weeks

**Author:** Maggiemerc

**Rating:** M (on account of violence, and a little sexy times?)

**Status:** In Progress

**Pairings:** Callie/Arizona

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of these characters. It is a tragedy I suffer through daily.

**Summary:** It was supposed to be two weeks in Africa. Arizona could do that in her sleep. Then things happened.

**Author's Note:** So as a standalone there is MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH. But I don't think it will be a standalone. It mainly started as a palate cleanser. I have a seriously problem starting news stories to jumpstart the creative juices. But yeah, there could be a sequel that will make everything better. But there might not be so MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH for now?

**####**

The alarm went off. It was loud. Obnoxious. Odious to the extreme. But it wasn't a beeper. Compared to a beeper it was the soothing dulcet tones of a lullaby. Beepers required instant actions. **Lives** depended on beepers. Alarms were just…suggestions.

Neither woman moved. It was easier to sit in bed staring at the ceiling and holding hands.

Down the hall the alarm—or more likely an internal one—woke the baby. Like the alarm her tears did not require immediate action.

The blond started to move. So her wife gripped her hand tighter to keep her in bed. "We need to let her cry it out."

"You're just saying that because you don't want to get up."

"True."

Now the alarm and the baby had found some sort of rhythm. The cacophony was in sync.

"I have a plan," Callie said.

"Okay."

"I hit the alarm and grab two cups of coffee while you change Sofia and put her back down. Then we drink our coffee and come back in here for lots and lots of sex before you go."

Arizona smiled. "I like that plan."

"I thought you would."

"Do we race?"

"I just have to pour coffee."

"Pft. I'm on Sofia duty. I **rock** at Sofia duty."

"Okay."

"Three."

"Two."

"One."

They both bolted from the bed. Callie got her feet tangled in the sheets and fell with a whoop but her traitorous wife didn't even stop to check on her. She was already racing across the apartment to Sofia.

Callie scrambled up and reached for the alarm, which was still loudly blaring. Four hours. They had four hours until Arizona's flight left. "I hate Africa," she shouted across the apartment.

From the other room Arizona called, "You can't hate a whole continent!"

"Malawi. I hate Malawi!"

She made her way into the kitchen and poured the coffee. Arizona came out bouncing Sofia in her arms. "You're really going to hate an entire country and all the sick and dying children in it?"

"Yes."

Arizona laughed, "You're a monster."

"Can't you just fly them out here again?"

"Alex nearly went to jail for fraud last time we tried that. Besides, it's two weeks."

Callie pouted.

"Don't make that face."

"I can if I want to. Also," she flipped her cup upside down to show it was empty, "I win."

Arizona chugged her coffee, promptly gagged, and then placed a slightly more settled Sofia down in her play pen. "So what now? You get a prize?"

"Yes. Now remove your pants."

Her wife raised an eyebrow and looked down at Sofia, "Can you believe your mommy? She wants me to play striptease in front of you."

"Baby eyes will not protect your pants Arizona. She's fifteen months old. Kids don't even possess long term memories until they're three or four usually."

"Boning up on your peds psychology?"

"For just such an occasion." She took Arizona's coffee cup and set it on the counter. Then grabbed her wife by the waist and pulled her close. "Now," she kissed her once on the lips, "take off your pants."

Arizona kissed her and then laughed again, "Oh gross."

"What?"

"Coffee and morning breath Calliope. Your mouth tastes like vomit." She slipped out from Callie's grasp and ran back to towards their room.

"You can run Arizona Robbins, but your pants will be mine!"

She chased after her and found her in the bathroom gargling mouthwash. As she spit she handed the half full bottle to Callie.

"Hurry up and gargle."

She took the bottle, "Wouldn't it be more hygienic for me to brush."

"Probably." Arizona tugged her pants and underwear off and whipped off her cami, "But not faster."

Callie started chugging.

#

Her wife insisted on taking her to the airport. She had to push back a surgery and Owen huffed but Callie was stalwart. Sofia went along for the drive so Arizona opted to sit in the back seat to catch a few more moments with her daughter.

"Would you stop taking pictures of her."

"I'm gone for two weeks Calliope. She'll have more hair. She might be running in two weeks."

"Then I'll send you video."

She scowled at her wife and took another photo, "Who's my precious baby girl? Sofia!"

Her daughter smiled and tried to demand the phone with pudgy little hands. Arizona pulled it just out of reached and Callie caught sight of the game in the rearview.

"And now you're playing keep away."

"Got to keep my phone safe," she leaned up into the front seat and snapped a photo of Callie's cleavage. "And now I have something to really keep me warm at night."

"You're as bad as Mark."

"Mh hm. Only I get to sleep with you."

They pulled into the loading zone and Arizona took another moment to snuggle with her daughter. She breathed in Sofia's scent and played with her hands and kissed her over and over again, relishing the soft feel of her long hair and smooth cheeks. Callie hopped out and went around to start unloading. She paused and watched her wife.

"You're gorgeous. You know that?"

"Mh hm."

"You're also going to see her in **two** weeks."

"Don't cut her hair."

"I won't."

Arizona took one last moment with Sofia then got out and went around to the side of the car where Callie was standing with her luggage. "I mean it. First haircuts are a big deal."

"And it can wait a little while. I promise."

"Mark's been wanting to cut her hair."

"He can wait."

"I love you."

Callie tilted her head. Smiled. "I know."

She pulled Arizona into her by the lapel of her jacket. It was some kind of safari jacket Papa Torres found and thought she'd like. It was generally a little too military for her tastes, but it was actually great for traveling, especially for her jaunts to Malawi. She could fill all its little pockets and it had a knack for staying warm in cool weather and breathing well in warmer weather.

Callie ran her fingers along the shoulders of it. "Be safe," she said in something just above a whisper, "make good choice," Arizona smiled, "and come home."

Arizona leaned in and kissed her wife. It was the only kiss she'd get for two weeks. The only chance to take her all in. She ran her hands over Callie's waist and up her back. Callie cupped her face in her hands and deepened the kiss and Arizona allowed herself a moment of mega PDA and ran her hands through her wife's hair.

Slowly the kiss turned from passionate to gentle. Familiar. It faded into soft pecks on the lips, then into a hug.

"Two weeks. We can do that in our sleep right?"

"Totally," Callie said.

She left her hand caress her wife's a moment longer. Held the hand up for inspection. Callie had gorgeous hands. Great gay hands. Strong, competent and that sheen of her ring, it melted Arizona.

But she let it go and grabbed her bag and headed inside. Never look back, she told herself. That's what her dad always said too. "You don't know what will happen Arizona, make sure that last memory counts."

#

When she landed in Istanbul she actually had to take a car to her next stop. Cargo flew out a part of the airport over a mile away and there weren't any convenient shuttles so she hopped in a taxi and dialed home.

It was 9:15 and she did the mental math. It wouldn't even be lunch in Seattle.

"Hey," her wife whispered. She could see her in her head, a perfect representation of Calliope. She was probably standing—no she would have stepped into a conference room. She was leaning against the table wearing her scrubs and coat and her sleeves were rolled off up to show off those perfect forearms.

She was definitely smiling, that warm sweet smile Arizona knew was just for her.

She mirrored it, "Hey."

"How's Africa?"

"I'm actually in Istanbul at the moment. They're transporting a huge thing of medical supplies and wanted me to help oversee."

"Exciting."

"You know it. How's Sofia?"

"A baby. Though I caught Mark speaking Spanish to her."

"Mark knows Spanish?"

"I know right? Apparently he learned so he can make sure Sofia doesn't lose her heritage."

"Does this mean I have to learn Spanish too?"

"I thought you were going to teach her some weird African language?"

"Or German. I haven't decided yet."

"You better hurry. Mark is getting a head start."

The line went silent. Both women comfortable just having that phantasmal link between them. The taxi came to a stop and the driver twisted in his seat and pointed at the meter.

"I should go. The taxi driver's asking to be paid and I'm pretty sure I don't have the right currency."

"Okay. Call me when you get to Malawi?"

She could have said she would but, "I love you," was so much easier.

#

"Oh my God she's been gone a day."

The mother of Mark's child was such a drama queen. Pouting and looking sad and acting like Arizona had gone back to Africa forever.

"I think you handled it better when she actually went and you thought she wasn't coming back."

Callie shot him a rude gesture involving a single finger.

"She just called. They're about to board a big cargo plane in Turkey. Then head south."

"Callie," he stepped in front of her and obstructed her view of absolutely nothing.

"What," she moaned.

"Stop moping."

"I'm not—"

He put a finger to her lips. "You are. And it's unattractive. Robbins will divorce you if I send her photos of you looking like this."

"Your hands smell like latex."

"Because I've been busying being an awesome surgeon. Which is what **you** should be busy doing."

"But I don't wanna."

He raised an eyebrow.

She stared.

"I need to go to go do surgeries don't I?"

"Yes. You do."

#

Working with Callie Meredith understood the appeal of Ortho. For a long time she'd kind of thought it was stupid. Orthopedic surgeons were big lumbering butchers hacking off limbs in order to "save lives." She'd even assumed that about Callie despite her sterling reputation in the hospital.

Then she started working with her. She witnessed the artistry of the speciality. Callie wasn't a butcher she was the surgical equivalent of an Italian Master. Given a few years to really build a reputation Meredith had no doubt Callie's talents would be as highly demanded as Derek's or Mark's. She was just that good.

But where Derek was calm and quiet in the OR, Callie was electric. Vibrant.

Talkative.

Alex had already mentioned Arizona going out of town for two weeks but now she had to listen to the surgeon's wife talk about it, and Callie liked to process things as rock music blared over the speakers to drown out the whine of the saw.

"She was supposed to call last night when she landed. It was going to be the day or whatever there but she said she was going to call."

"It is Africa. Maybe the cell towers are down."

"Exactly." Callie said it less for Meredith and more for herself.

It made sense though. It wasn't like her plane had crashed or something. They would have heard about it by now, and Callie was only a little bouncier than usual. Even she was assuming it was something mundane.

After they finished rebuilding an arm and patting each other on the back Meredith followed Callie out to the waiting room where Mr. Lagato's family was waiting as patiently as one could under the circumstances.

Callie smiled, she had a big and open smile and it always seemed to immediately put her patients at ease.

"How's my father," the daughter asked.

"He's fine. We'll need to double check function when he wakes up, but with regular physical therapy I think he'll get back quite a bit of…"

She trailed off, some sight having caught her eye. It took Meredith a moment to realize her attending had stopped talking. The family too. They all nervously followed her gaze.

At the door two men in very well tailored suits stood perfectly still. One was looking at his phone and the other was looking directly at them.

Callie excused herself distractedly and walked towards the men. Meredith, now distracted herself quickly explained how well things had turned out for Mr. Legato despite getting his hand caught in a massive wire and having the bones of his arm nearly severed in two.

She excused herself as well and walked towards Callie. Something…something wasn't right. The men were speaking to Callie and she realized she'd seen that look. It was a mirror of one she'd seen carried on others more than once in this very room.

They kept talking and Callie kept nodding. Meredith was close enough now to hear them. They were apologizing. Trying to figure out if they should reach out and physically comfort Callie or continue to stand still.

Callie though—she was a statue. Meredith came around to see her face and saw a myriad of emotions—reactions. Callie was processing and reprocessing news her mind simply would not accept.

"Callie," she ventured.

Something snapped and Callie collapsed, hot and heavy tears ran down her face as she fell to her knees. Meredith—usually one loathe to comfort another besides Cristina—rushed the last few steps to wrap her arms around the other woman. Callie didn't seek comfort though. She didn't try to hug or accept the arms around her. She visibly shook as she swallowed her sobs and the people in the room watched in pity and horror.

"Find Dr. Sloan.," Meredith told the men who'd delivered the news.

"No," Callie gasped, "Hunt. Hunt and Altman."

#

Meredith escorted Callie, still in her scrub cap and surgical gown, to Owen's office where the chief of surgery, the cardiothoracic surgeon who wouldn't talk to him and the two suits soon joined her. Cristina, being a shadow of Owen or Teddy on any given day stood outside on the catwalk with Meredith. From their vantage point they could see the suits and the former Army doctors talking and making calls while Callie watched them—not with the nervous look of someone lost—but with the haughty air of the privileged and determined.

"What happened," Cristina asked, "we get a 911 and now they're just chatting?"

"It's Robbins," Cristina looked over surprised, "she was supposed to call Callie from Africa. She never did."

They returned to looking into the office.

"Woah," Cristina finally said. "Think we should…I don't know, call someone? Tell Sloan or something?"

"I already paged him."

Sure enough Sloan soon breezed by them without so much as an acknowledgement and let himself into Owen's office. They watch as he postured. Listened. Teddy seemed to be wiping at angry tears and Owen was sitting perfectly still with his fist clenched tightly. Callie said something from her spot on the couch and even Meredith's heart broke a little as Mark reacted.

"I think…I think she's gone Cristina."

They should have gone back to work. They had patients. Boards to prepare for. They could have even gone and started gently spreading the news to others. Alex…he would want to know.

But instead they stood still on the catwalk—standing vigil. Bearing witness to Callie's grief. She was begging and pleading and insisting. She had her phone out.

"Robbin's dad is a Marine. Bet she's trying to get him to help."

What Cristina left unsaid was the part about "looking for a body."

Lexie came next and asked if it was true. They just nodded and she leaned against the rail. "Poor Callie."

Meredith thought of Derek. What she would do if one day he just didn't come home. She'd considered it before. Had rattling dreams of him dead on a table as Cristina held her in sorrow. But it had been years. Years since she'd thought of him dead. When he came to see what they were all doing staring at Owen's office she wrapped herself around him just to make sure he was real.

Others trickled in. Avery. April. Alex said it was all such crap and went to be alone. Bailey stood apart from them and watched in silence. Arizona had always been on the fringe of their little group. Meredith couldn't even remember the last conversation she'd had with her, but she had still, in some way, been one of them. The shooting, George. She'd been there. Suffered through it. And they had been there for her. Watched her stand guard over Callie's bed after her accident. Brought her food and ran interference when she and Mark were ready to kill each other.

She'd never officially been one of them, but she'd earned her place.

#

It was the Colonel who first asked about a funeral. He and Barbara came out to see Callie and as she showed them maps they'd gotten this pained look on their faces.

"Callie," he said as gently as a lifelong soldier committed to delivering bad news could, "she's MIA."

"People come back."

"Her plane crashed over a month ago sweetheart. If she were…if she were alive we would know."

But if she were dead Callie would know. She'd known with George. Even before definitive confirmation when his brain was dead she'd felt it. And they'd been separated for over a year. Arizona was her **wife**. They had a child together. They had rings and matching necklaces and could finish each other's sentences if they were in the mood.

She would **know**.

She said as much. Barbara wept and the Colonel left. He needed to take a walk.

#

Alex mentioned it next. "I'm just saying. The kids ask about her and it'd be nice if they had some stupid stone or something they could go look at."

"I'm not burying an empty coffin Karev."

"Yeah but it's been two months. What's the cut off date for 'definitely dead'?"

She actually punched him. Meredith and Cristina grabbed her to keep her from ruining her hand on Alex's face.

"She wouldn't want you moping forever," he said.

She knew, in his special Alex way, he was trying to help.

Only he was asking her to bury her wife and she wasn't dead. She couldn't be.

#

Three months after Arizona's plane went down somewhere in the Congo near the border of Rwanda the men in suits came knocking. They brought satellite photos of the wreckage. On the ground footage of the search. They showed her how the bodies had been burned down to ashes when the fuel tanks exploded. The fire consumed everything and the jungle had quickly reasserted itself. By the time they found it all it was nothing but a mess of mud, ashes and the charred skeleton of the fuselage.

"If she was in the plane, she couldn't have made it," they said.

Mark held her hand.

"What if someone found them before the fire?"

The men in suits shared a look. Then told her Arizona was gone.

She touched the necklace she wore. It was identical to Arizona's. They'd bought them together but wrapped them separately. They'd been so goofy and giddy and silly in love when they exchanged them.

"She had a necklace."

"It would have melted."

"But the gold would still be there."

"Dr. Torres, I think you need to prepare for the fact that it is highly unlikely she survived."

Only their daughter had faced terrible odds when she was born. 23 weeks? Babies didn't survive that! And Callie. She'd suffered injuries that would have left others crippled, or brain dead. Only she'd lived. Four months later she walked down the aisle and started a life with her wife.

"We beat the odds in this family," she heard herself say. Like some fiery Penelope in a down home country retelling of the Odyssey.

#

Four months later she came home to find Mark cutting Sofia's hair. "It was so long. She was starting to look weird."

Her daughter smiled and waved and beckoned her over.

He didn't know better. He didn't understand.

And he said nothing when she sank to the floor in tears.

#

A year later Sofia pointed to the picture of her mommies and asked who the blond one was. Callie told her about her mom the brave surgeon who went to Africa. How she was the very first one to meet her cousin Zola in a little clinic in Malawi. How one day she went back to save more lives and she disappeared.

Sofia was still too young to understand life and death. The story was more for Callie to tell. She worked on it often in her head. Expanding it. Embellishing it. Her daughter might never meet her mother but she would know her.

#

"How is she?"

"Close," Meredith said, "Mark kicked me out of the room though."

"Want me to go in?"

Marked kicked Callie out too. And Derek when he tried.

Sofia and Zola toddled back over and asked when their sister and cousin, respectively, was going to get there.

Callie watched Derek and Meredith hug and missed Arizona more painfully than ever.

Later she sat in the dark with Mark as he cuddled his newest daughter. "I kept thinking about her today," she confessed.

"She'd want you to be happy Callie. Two years is—"

"I can't Mark. She was…she was it for me. I look at men, women, and none of them matter."

"You're just worried you'll get knocked up and she'll show up on your doorstep again."

#

Two years, four months and twenty-two days after her wife disappeared Callie found herself sitting at the kitchen table in her new house and staring at a document. If she signed it and delivered it to the court it would officially petition the court to recognize her wife as legally dead. If she signed it she would be twice made a widow.

In retrospect it had been easy with George. His death had been final. Absolute. But with Arizona nothing was certain. She could sign that document, go and find some new spouse, give Sofia more siblings and then Arizona would come walking down the driveway with a crooked smile on her face.

So she folded the document up and put it back in her desk and went into her bedroom and tried to sleep. It was the first time she'd cried in what felt like years.

#

Two years, four months and twenty-two days after the other mother of his child disappeared Mark found himself holding his newest daughter in his lap and drinking a beer and watching Callie's house from his patio.

They'd bought houses next door to each other six months ago. Lexie had begged Callie to just move in with them but she'd refused.

It was a nice neighborhood, surrounded by trees and if he really wanted to Lexie claimed he could ride a bike and be at Derek and Meredith's in five or six minutes. As he had no desire to go climbing a hill on a stupid bicycle he had not tested the claim.

His daughter shifted in her sleep and he gave her a little bounce to comfort her.

Across the lawn he could see a light on in Callie's kitchen and another upstairs in the bedroom.

The door behind him slid open and Lexie stepped out. "Hey," she whispered.

He motioned her over with his beer and she took seat—stopping to take a moment and caress their child's head.

"What are you two doing out here?"

He nodded in Callie's direction. "I'm worried about her."

"She's doing all right."

"Meredith says she put all of Robbins' stuff in storage. **After** we boxed it all up to be given away."

Lexie reached over and took his beer. She considered the news as she drank.

"She's got to move on Lex. It's not healthy."

"Her wife died. That can be hard. My dad destroyed his liver missing my mom."

"But your dad actually acknowledged she died. Callie keeps pretending she's alive. You know Teddy set her up on a date and she bailed? **And **she's still wearing the ring and the necklace."

"You're worried about her."

"And I can't figure out why no one else is."

She scooted her chair over quietly so she could rest her head on her husband's shoulder. But she didn't offer any excuses—for Callie or for their friends. The kitchen light at Callie's flicked off and then a minute or so later the light in her bedroom flicked off.

He wondered what she did over there when Sofia slept. She liked to read and cook but she'd always been a talker. She would stay up late into the night talking, but she didn't have anyone to talk with. Cristina and Meredith and he were her best friends and he knew for a fact she wasn't talking to them.

What if— "What if she's talking to her at night?"

Lexie looked up and studied his face.

"You always see that right? People can't get over a loss so they talk to them like they're there."

"Then she talks to Arizona."

"You don't think it's weird?"

"I think if I lost you tomorrow I'd still talk to you every night."

#

"Mark's watching us from his patio again. I think I need to have some trees planted so he won't be such a weirdo."

"He's worried about you."

"He wouldn't be if you were here."

"If I was there I would have told you not to go around being a widow and living next door to your best friend-slash-baby daddy. Serious Calliope, that was a bad decision."

"What! I don't have to drive Sofia all over town for her nights with her dad and if I have an emergency at the hospital he can just walk over in his pajamas and watch her."

"And watch you from his patio."

"I could just yank the curtains open and flash him."

"No one sees those boobs but me babe."

"I wish I wasn't talking to myself."

"I miss you too."


	2. Part 2

**Title:** Just Two Weeks 2

**Author:** Maggiemerc

**Rating:** M (on account of violence, and a little sexy times?)

**Status:** In Progress

**Pairings:** Callie/Arizona

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of these characters. It is a tragedy I suffer through daily.

**Summary:** It was supposed to be two weeks in Africa. Arizona could do that in her sleep. Then things happened.

**Author's Note: **Thank you so much for the kind words! And for the various ideas thrown out about how she COULD survive. So here's part 2. Seriously considering a part 3. We'll see.

**Part 2**

Before she'd lost Arizona Callie hadn't watched much television. A small tv in the kitchen for cooking shows and the morning news and one in the bedroom to watch old movies on at night and when sick had been more than enough.

But after Arizona she'd found a bit of solace in television. Especially on the nights Sofia stayed with her father. The house got lonely and watching primetime soap operas and shows about vampires and the wonder of HGTV kept her occupied. When they finally moved out of the condo and into the house next door to Mark's she'd splurged on a big fancy television that Sofia very quickly learned how to use.

Mark and Lexie, like Callie before, weren't big tv watchers and Mark was very much against his daughter being a big tv watcher. "There's the great outdoors and swing sets and books and I'm not going to have one of those kids who can operate an iPad but can't read at grade level."

So Sofia and Callie had a little secret they kept from Mark and when she stayed with her mom on the weekends she'd get up early and toddle into the living room and watch cartoons until Callie got up. Then Callie would stumble into the den with a big blanket and they'd curl up on the couch together and watch more cartoons while eating cereal.

It was their special bonding time. Time not spent operating in their funny little blended family or devoted to work and daycare respectively. Callie was happiest then and Sofia, though only three, picked up on that. So she often asked about her other mom then and they'd end up wasting hours on the floor next to the chest of drawers full of old photos and home videos. The videos were mainly ones from Arizona's childhood. Videos Callie hadn't even seen until Barbara mailed them to her, "For Sofia," she'd said when Callie called her about them. "I can't…they're not doing any good here and I thought you might want to watch them some day with Sofia."

The first time Callie watched them she watched them alone. It was a night Sofia was with her dad and it was also a rare thunderstorm in Seattle. The rain beat like a drum against the windows and the thunder crashed against the clouds and Callie sat on the couch with a six pack of beer and wept until her eyes were dry and her throat was sore and her beer was warm.

She'd always hoped that maybe, just maybe, she and Arizona might have had another kid. A blond girl or boy with dimples and blue eyes.

"And your skin tone right? Because I burn in the sun Calliope."

"With your dimples and my coloring our baby would end up being a danger to the world. That would be too much cuteness to be contained."

"We'd have to cage them in their room until they were seventy."

"They'd have company though."

"Well yeah, Sofia is already going to be stuck in there."

"Great minds think a like."

"Helps that we're one brain, but disturbing that we both immediately go to child imprisonment."

"It's probably because I've had four beers in an hour."

"Callie Torres you are drunk."

She woke up the next morning with a mouth that tasted like vomit and the tapes, largely unwatched, scattered on the floor. After she brushed her teeth and drank a large pot of coffee she tried to watch them again, and in the sober light of day they were still heartbreaking, but sweet.

When she finally started watching them with Sofia she found the heartache dulled. Sofia didn't perceive them as memorials of someone they lost. To her, being only a child, they simply made Arizona present. They made her tangible like no story or photo could.

"She's so funny Mama. Like a cartoon."

Sofia eventually told her father about it and after he saw her to bed Callie found him on her doorstep.

"You guys watch Robbins' old home videos?"

"Barbara sent them. Sofia likes them." She was challenging him. Daring him to say no.

And he knew it. He held his hands up defensively, "Look I want Sofia to know her mom. And I think it's great she gets to see those videos. She clearly loves them, but Callie what the hell are **you** doing?"

"Mark."

"Sofia can handle those videos. I don't doubt it, but you still wear the ring."

"Did you really just come over here at nine o'clock at night to tell me to stop wallowing?"

He clenched his jaw, "Yes. You got the papers. They're in there waiting to be filled out. So do it."

"Mark."

He took a step closer to her and said in a low voice, "Do you really think Arizona would want you to be a sad sack widow the rest of your life?"

She slammed the door in his face. It wasn't very friendly. It was, in fact, pretty childish, but she didn't care. He'd been pushing her. They all had. Day by day they'd pushed and prodded her to give up Arizona's ghost and move on.

And she couldn't.

####

Meredith sidled up next to Callie and nodded at Bailey whom immediately buried herself in the chart in front of her to avoid the coming…thing.

"Zola's party is on Saturday."

Callie paused in her own charting and looked up, "I know?"

"And you haven't RSVP'd."

"Because I see you every day and live like a mile away."

"But you should RSVP, because Zola wants you to be there."

"Mark and Lexie are bringing Sofia."

"Fine. But Zola was very specific in her desire to see **you** there. She drew a picture Callie."

Callie turned away in revulsion when Meredith started to pull a piece of construction paper out of her pocket. "Don't do that. I don't need to see that."

"What? The picture she drew of you at her party?"

The picture was in fact a small dark brown blob on top of a purple blob next to a larger and lighter brown blob on top a red one. In Grey's neat script the blobs were labeled 'Zola' and 'Callie' respectively.

"That is disgustingly cute."

"And effective."

"And manipulative." She motioned over to where Bailey was still trying to avoid their conversation, "And Bailey doesn't have to go!"

Bailey waved her hand dismissively, "Don't look at me. Zola and Tuck are in a fight."

"So you're coming," Meredith really just wanted a yes already.

"You're a monster."

"I am taking that as a yes and we look forward to seeing you. Zola expects magnificent presents and at least one story."

She spun on her heel and did the closet a Grey ever would do to a flounce.

"You're a monster!" Callie called after her.

####

In the movies widows always got on with their lives pretty quickly. They found new lovers and made new memories and slowly and surely the old faded and gave way to the new.

That had even happened with George. Once upon a time she thought of him every hour of every day. Now she thought of him maybe a few times a year. Usually when she was getting ready to meet up with his mom so she could spend time with Zola. As her own mother still refused to speak to her—even after the disappearance of her wife—Mrs. O'Malley was the closest thing she had to a mother. She'd sort of adopted her and vice a versa. Two sad old widows refusing to wallow in their grief.

Teddy though. She'd moved on quickly. Found new love and a new life after Henry. She never even mentioned him. But Callie found herself thinking of Arizona every day.

"Does it ever go away," she once asked Mrs. O'Malley.

The older woman had turned thoughtful at the question. Really pondered it as she sipped her glass of wine. "I guess, I was lucky. Harold passed away and I was there."

And Callie was on the other side of the world when her wife's plane went down in one of the most dangerous parts of the world. "I could have gone with her. Or…if we'd never fought and we'd both gone to Africa together way back when she'd probably be alive."

"Callie, we can't always wonder what could have been."

But she still did. She liked to think of ways Arizona could have survived. Though known really made sense. It had been more than two years. If she were alive. If she really were out there than she would have found a way. Maybe not back to Callie but she would have found a way to let her know she was okay.

And that knowledge was what always brought her back to those papers. Leaving for work that morning she'd shoved them in her purse and then moved them to her pocket. She only had to sign them and she could move on. She could buy a tombstone and properly grieve and Christmas with the Robbins' family wouldn't feel so awkward. The Colonel and his wife had made peace with what had happened. They, while not happy, could acknowledge that they'd outlived their children.

So why couldn't Callie?

She tugged the papers out of her pocket and read over them again. Tried to understand the words in a way she hadn't before. But it didn't work. With a frustrated sigh she shoved them back in her pocket and stepped into the elevator.

She had more important things to think about. Like how she could rearrange her schedule to skip Zola's party. Not that she wanted to skip it. She loved Zola and Zola was Sofia's very best friend in the world. She just really couldn't handle all the sad eye faces. Since Mark had let slip she'd had the papers written up Lexie, Meredith and even Derek Shepherd were giving her the sad eye faces.

The elevator doors dinged open and Callie stepped back in surprise. Two men in cheap dress shirts and slacks were standing there looking quite tired, haggard and generally put upon. Yet there was something…

One of them noted her name on her coat, "Dr. Torres?"

"Yes."

"You need to come with us."

####

Meredith was stuck fixing her idiot resident's idiot work and because re-charting something a five year old should have been able to handle was incredibly frustrating and annoying she opted to do her work in the lobby. There was nice lighting and she could watch all the interns and residents do their whole flirting thing like they were in high school.

It was excellent people watching all around.

And made better when her husband emerged from the elevators.

"Hey," he said before throwing himself into the chair next to her.

"What are you doing?"

"Fixing the charts my resident destroyed."

He craned his neck to get a look at them. "They can't be that—wow."

"He's an idiot."

He gave her a peck on the cheek and noted, "You could teach him how to do them properly."

"I will. After Zola's party when I have time."

"Do I still need to pick up the cake?"

"Yup."

"And will I also be joining Mark in kidnapping Torres?"

She grinned, "Nope. I used Zola art to guilt her into agreeing to come."

The elevator opened once more and Callie stepped out in street clothes with her purse slung over her shoulder and two sour looking guys following close behind. She paused when she saw them. Derek stood up cautiously. "Is everything okay?"

She jerked her thumb in the mens' direction, "Apparently there's some off site VIP that needs the best ortho surgeon in the Pacific Northwest. Can you guys let Mark know?"

"You're going to make it to the party right," Meredith asked from where she was still seated.

Callie glanced back at the two men who gave away nothing. She shrugged, "Hopefully."

"Don't make me pull out the picture again."

"Can you guys tell her I'll be back?"

The slightly less stony face of the two redirected his icy gaze onto Meredith.

"They're really good at staring," she said involuntarily.

"I know right?" Snapping her fingers like a diva Callie walked towards the exit, "Come on boys!"

Derek and Meredith watched them leave. "What picture," he asked.

Wordlessly she pulled the picture out of her pocket and handed it to him. Outside Callie was stepping into the back of a black SUV that was idling at the entrance.

"Wow. This is disgustingly cute."

"Our child is basically a genius."

"Basically."

####

The cocky bravado she'd displayed with Meredith and Derek disappeared as soon as she was in the back of the darkly tinted SUV. One of the men started driving while the other drew out a phone and spoke just low enough that Callie couldn't hear him over the road noise.

She resigned herself to staring out the window and was surprised when she realized they were headed towards the airport.

"So this is definitely an overnighter?"

Neither man spoke.

They passed through security at a side entrance after waving badges and drove straight onto the carpet.

"So this VIP. Their title doesn't rhyme with 'smresidential' does it?"

They continued to ignore her.

"Shmirst lady?"

Nothing.

"Shom Smruise?"

Still nothing.

"Oh come on guys, give me something!"

The SUV stopped in front of a private plane and the fed in the passenger seat turned to face her. "You'll be boarding this plane in a moment and I need you to leave any electronic devices here. Phones. E-reader. Tablet. They have to stay in the car."

"Where are we going?"

"I'm not at liberty to discuss that."

"Then my phone stays with me."

He sighed, "Ma'am it isn't a request. You have to get on that plane and you have to leave your phone."

"So this is a kidnapping?" She tried to sound braver than she was starting to feel.

"Only children can be kidnapped. You mean abduction and if you get on the plane of your own free will it doesn't count as one."

"But if I don't…"

He sighed again. "Then it could, conceivably be considered an abduction, but I need you to know that we, the United States government, are asking this of you. This is your country."

The driver had turned in his seat to watch her as well.

She had a choice. Well. A facsimile of a choice. There wasn't actually a choice. She was in a car in a restricted part of an airport with two government agents who wanted her on a plane. Her choice wasn't whether or not she would get on that plane with them, it was on whether she'd do so willingly.

"This," her eyes darted from one agent to the other, "is actually about needing a doctor right?"

They looked at each other and her stomach started to rebel. Finally, "Yes ma'am."

"That answer took a while."

He held out his hand. "Phone please."

####

Planes had a soporific affect on Callie and as soon as she was seated on the very nice expensive private jet she fell asleep. When she woke up one of her two "handlers" (for lack of a better word) was standing over her.

"We there yet?"

He handed her her purse and motioned for her to follow. They stepped out onto the tiniest and most ineffective runway she'd ever seen. The runway was a mix of gravel and dirt and the terminal was merged with the tower into one shabby looking building. There were a few inexpensive private planes lining the runway and another dark SUV idling in front of the terminal

"Um, where are we?"

"Idaho." The handlers gently prodded Callie towards the SUV which then sped off, spitting up more gravel in its wake.

"Is there any reason we're in Idaho," she asked. Though she already knew they wouldn't answer. Talking to these guys was like pulling blood from a stone.

They drove another thirty some odd minutes before arriving at a large house. A half a dozen government looking vehicles sat in the drive way. Some still had government looking men and women standing beside them. As they approached she noticed the house was on a hill with half of in, including an impressive deck, jutting out into the air.

For a brief silly moment she allowed herself to think that these men were taking her to her wife who'd been—she didn't know—in witness protection? It was silly though.

Arizona was dead.

####

Meredith came out of surgery feeling more than a little fantastic. They were scant days away from Zola's birthday party, she had cool surgeries lined up for the next week and Bailey had been talking about another diabetes trial she wanted Meredith's input on.

She might have whistled but a dark and twisty woman such as herself generally shied away from whistling. It wasn't becoming.

Instead she walked with a bounce in her step and sidled up to the nurse's station ready to gush with joy, but when she got there Owen and her husband were both standing perfectly still—their eyes on the small television there.

"What are you guys—"

Derek held up a hand then pointed in silence at the television.

####

Her tour guides escorted Callie into the house where an impromptu office had been set up in the living room complete with a multitude of monitors peaking into what looked like the bedroom beyond. More guys milled around the kitchen.

There was a big map hung up on the wall with photos around it and bright red lines of yarn bisecting the map and carving out a path made of push pins.

Being curious Callie tried to see if she could recognize the men in the photos around the map, but none of them seemed familiar. They did, however appear to be a whole multitude of nationalities on the wall. Squinting at the map in the center of it she tried to make out the area it covered but it was too far away to see for sure.

An older woman was sitting at the bank of monitors. She was in a rumbled business suit and looked like an intern after a forty-eight hour shift. Her frosted blond hair was held back by a pair of reading glasses and another pair were perched on the tip of her nose. She looked up at Callie. Pursed her lips.

"You're her?"

Callie briefly looked around for any confirmation but her drivers were already rooting through the kitchen for food. Directing her attention back to the woman she agreed in confusion, "I…am?"

The woman sighed and rubbed at her eyes beneath her glasses. "What have you been told?"

"Nothing. Which was cute back in Seattle. Less cute in the middle of nowhere Idaho."

"Do you have any electronics on you?"

"No. Your friends took them when they implied that if I didn't come I would be kidnapped."

"Right," she clapped her hands together and pushed herself out of her chair. "So you're here to provide emotional support. Stability. Anything you see here—anything you hear—is not to leave this house. If it does you could very well face criminal charges."

"What the—"

"You've got twenty minutes Dr. Torres. Make them count."

She slapped Callie on the back and shoved her into the bedroom guarded by two stern looking no nonsense kind of guys.

At least she'd assumed it was a bedroom. In fact it was part meeting room and part bedroom. The part she found herself in was dominated by a large table. There was some old food—someone's meal—at one end. At the other where the cameras. More hung from the walls and all seemed focused on the part of the table where the food was.

The meeting side of the room was separated from the living quarters by some plywood propped up by 1x4 lumber. The wood was recently cut too. She could still smell it under the smell of stale food on the table.

The bedroom, versus the meeting room, was devoid of ample lighting for cameras. One camera was situated in the corner closest to the partition and the red blinking light a reminder that Callie was being watched. The bed was unmade and the covers bundled up on the floor at the foot of it. There was a couch opposite the bed with a suitcase full of brand new women's clothes. The tags were plainly visible.

But what wasn't in the room was Callie's patient. Whomever the government had pulled her from her job and family to treat. It was then she noticed the smell of something. Cigarette smoke.

The door out to that expansive deck she'd seen from the road was open. The light outside had turned pink as the sun set in the trees and filtered through the greenery.

And something…something stirred in Callie. A vestigial memory of a time purposely forgotten. Or a "hunch." She was confused. Tired. Mildly alarmed at the sheer number of government types just on the other side of the wall.

But her feet carried her forward. Step by step she came closer to the deck. The smoke now reminded her not of something—but of someone.

Queer desires for a woman dead fluttered inside of her. It was hope, deluded hope, that quickened her steps.

####

"Hey what are you all doin—"

Meredith held up her hand for silence and Mark, for once in his life, respected that. He shut up. Came closer.

The news was being repeated a second time for people tuning in and Meredith glanced at Mark and watched him process it. His face must have mirrored her own a few moments earlier. Surprise. Elation. Horror. Confusion. It was all there. No one emotion overpowering any of the others.

On the other side of her Derek stood stock still. She was certain she could actually **hear** him blinking.

Someone's pager went off. Mark was still rooted and staring at the TV, but Derek and Meredith turned to Owen who was trying to comprehend what was happening on the television and also what he was seeing on his pager.

"I…," he laughed, "Looks like we're already getting calls from the press."

Derek asked Meredith, "Did Callie tell you anything about this?"

She shook her head. "Mark," she asked.

"Yeah?"

"Did you know?"

He glanced at them distractedly, "No. I didn't know a thing."

The newscaster continued speaking, "…was a doctor from the Seattle area. Her medical transport disappeared over the Congo more than two and a half years ago."

"It was two years and four months," Mark said. "Callie's been keeping count."

####

The air out on the deck was fresh. Fresher than any Callie had ever inhaled. It was the same air that she'd breathed in at the front of the house. And really, it wasn't actually fresh. There was all the cigarette smoke. The deck wrapped around half the house and more partitions had been put up, effectively closing off the space Callie was in. Leaving her on one side and her captors, guards, new friends—whatever—on the other. Some of them were chatting and smoking just on the other side of all that cheap wood. Wondering if "she'll run."

But she'd never run. She couldn't. Not when she was seeing what she was seeing. Her back was to Callie. Her hair was wavy which meant she'd been air drying it and it was too short. As short as it was when they'd first met. She hated it that short. Complained about it endlessly.

She was too skinny too. Not emaciated, but possessing some physique Callie usually only saw in athletes who weren't getting enough food and experiencing too much stress. She could probably run a marathon in the shape she was in, but she'd collapse by the end. Keel over as her heart failed.

She took a long drag of her cigarette and Callie noticed her wrist was in a very nice fiberglass cast. As she fretted with her cigarette the doctor in Callie also noticed there seemed to be no loss of function in the hand.

"I know you want answers. But really, until I see my family I'm not in the mood."

Callie had been approaching slowly. Cautiously. Stunned beyond reason by what she was seeing and capable only of analytically observing what she was seeing. The shock was too strong to do otherwise. But those words stopped her. She sounded so forceful. Like the often authoritative surgeon she was.

And her voice. Callie had forgotten what it sounded like. She only realized it then when she heard it. Tears unbidden formed. Pain in her throat that indicated she was about to start crying.

Something like a sob and a gasp merged into one escaped her lips and the woman in front of her turned. There was fire in her eyes. Absolute irritation.

And when she saw Callie it all disappeared. The bravado. The anger. Everything was gone. Laying bare the woman beneath. A woman who never cried in front of others but who was now struggling not to cry in front of her wife.

"Callie?"

A song from her lips.

"Arizona."


	3. Part 3

**Title:** Just Two Weeks 3

**Author:** Maggiemerc

**Rating:** M (on account of violence, and a little sexy times?)

**Status:** In Progress

**Pairings:** Callie/Arizona

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of these characters. It is a tragedy I suffer through daily.

**Spoilers: **This takes place before the final three episodes of Season 8. So certain people are alive and certain people don't even exist.

**Summary:** It was supposed to be two weeks in Africa. Arizona could do that in her sleep. Then things happened.

**Author's Note:** Was waiting for the finale to end to post this. I AM ON A HOT STREAK. Shonda Rhimes gave me the lady storytelling version of blue **cough**. I'm dealing with it as best I can.

**Just Two Weeks 3**

Arizona started to move towards her, her mouth hung open in mute awe, but as she shifted something flashed across her face and she stopped. She was still hurt. Callie caught it immediately. She was favoring her left leg and either was having trouble moving towards Callie, or more likely, didn't want to let on about her injury.

Callie recognized the problem instantly and crossed the distance between them. She paused just short of her wife. She could feel the tears burning her throat and the smile so large her face ached. She reached up and cupped her wife's cheek.

Arizona immediately leaned into her touch. It was so natural. The smooth feel of her skin beneath her fingers. The serenity she gave Arizona with a caress.

"You're alive." Her words were choked. She was crying actually. The tears had just sprung up on their own. She could feel the breeze on the deck drying them as they fell.

Arizona nodded. She was crying too, tight lipped and reluctant as always. But that was why they worked so well together. Tears came easily to Callie. She reveled in them and she could feel brightly the emotions her wife shied away from.

"They wouldn't let me near a phone or I would have—"

Callie didn't care. Didn't care about the suits in the house or what had caused her wife's injuries. She didn't care how Arizona had survived or where she'd been for the last two years. All she cared about was Arizona. She pulled her to her and kissed and…

And it was a balm. Wiping away two long years of agony. In Arizona's lips there was only salvation. She felt Arizona's hand wrap around her own and she could taste her tears on her lips. So she kept kissing her because if she kissed her enough perhaps the tears Arizona shed would disappear. It would all disappear. The shadow of grief she would now have to give up. The years of waiting. The shock and hurt. There would only be the two of them left. Frantically kissing on a deck in Idaho.

####

When the heady emotions had passed Callie still found herself clinging to her wife and reluctant to let go. But Arizona was in the same position and held Callie's hand in a vice-like grip. They took a seat in some folding chairs far from the guarded partition and just stared at one another.

It was silly. They both recognized it. Arizona laughed bashfully and Callie joined her but neither let go of the other's hand.

"How's Sofia," Arizona finally asked when her emotions settled enough for her to speak.

"She's good. Staying with Mark and Lexie."

"They wouldn't let you bring her?"

"I didn't—they didn't tell me where I was going. I didn't know you were…here until I saw you just now."

That stunned Arizona and she tried to speak, but she couldn't find her voice and just worked her jaw as she tried to understand that. Finally she asked, "They didn't tell you anything?"

"No. How…where have you been?"

"I was laid up in a military hospital in Germany for two weeks then they brought me here to 'debrief me' but I made it clear I wasn't going to say anything until I saw you first."

She brought Callie's hand up to her lips then covered it with her hand in a cast.

"And before Germany? I know about the plane crash. How did you—"

"I survived the crash itself. Some men…I was found. They decided having their very own personal physician was better than letting me go."

Callie looked down at her wife's leg. The bad one. "Did they hurt you?"

"Being gone was way worse than anything that happened with them." Arizona seemed to genuinely believe that, but Callie wanted to ask more. Wanted to know every detail of what happened. Wanted to see every scar and heal every wound.

Arizona did something between a laugh and a sob and looked as though she was about to say more. Footsteps on the deck stopped her. The woman from inside was approaching. "See Ms. Robbins. We brought her. Now would you like to talk?"

Callie stood up and immediately put herself between the woman and her wife. "No," she challenged, "we're going home."

Behind her Arizona squeezed her hand tightly.

"I'm sorry Ms. Torres, but your 'wife' has information pertaining to national security. Until she tells us what she knows we have the authority and desire to hold her."

"It's Doctor Torres, and if you air quote my relationship with my wife again I'll—"

Arizona's hand drifted from hers and as if in slow motion she limped to stand beside her. "It's okay Callie. I…I agreed to talk to them."

Another man joined them on the deck and motioned for Callie to follow. She turned to her wife, "You sure."

Wordlessly Arizona nodded then reached out quickly to squeeze Callie's hand.

As she passed the older woman she tried to give her the darkest, nastiest and most threatening look she could muster. The woman effortlessly ignored her.

"Now Ms. Robbins. Let's go sit down and have a chat about your friends in the Congo."

####

As they were monitoring Arizona's "debriefing" in the living room they sent her outside with a bottle of water and a terse nod. After twenty minutes a haggard looking woman in cargo pants and a polo shirt joined her. The light was failing and Callie had to squint before she recognized her.

"You were one of the people who came to talk to me about the wreckage."

The woman nodded and drew a cigarette from her pocket. When she lit it their little bit of the compound flared up in an orange glow. "I am. How are you Dr. Torres?"

"Amazing all things considered—did you know she was alive?"

"Found out three hours ago. Donna in there was trying to keep her for herself."

"I'm sorry…"

The woman waved her hand dismissively, "Bureaucratic spy junk. Your wife happens to have been the guest of a small time warlord and a major player and major supplier of one of the world's most important mineral resources."

Callie tried to wrap her head around that one.

"Think of him as a prince. He held a small portion of the DRC for the last six years and has been making a killing mining the area. Then he was using that money to fund some really nasty people, and providing them with space to make some really nasty deals. And she's the first person to ever escape his territory alive—well, capable of speech."

So. Arizona had been living out a plot line from a Tom Clancy novel for the last two years. She tried to wrap her head around that and failed miserably.

"I don't get it."

The woman shrugged, "No one gets how she made it out and the way she's acting in there we probably never will. But it doesn't matter. She's got some excellent intel about some dangerous people and now we get to rain down hell on their heads because of it."

"So my wife is the lynchpin in some spy novel?"

"She's just a doctor whose plane crashed in the wrong part of the Congo."

She leaned over and offered Callie a cigarette but she refused. "And after you get what you want from her?"

"You all go back to your lives. Couple of hours from now we'll put your asses on a plane and send you back to Seattle and barring a major international crisis never have to see either of you again. You're on your own with the press though. Some asshole who will soon be out of a job leaked it around the same time that put you on a plane here."

"The press knows?"

She threw the remains of her cigarette to the ground and stomped on it. "Oh yeah. And a pretty blond doctor with a gorgeous family and a super successful career? Be glad Oprah's off the air."

Callie leaned heavily against the car she'd been standing next to. The press? Oprah? She was still trying to get over her wife being alive and now she had all that and some shadowy criminal that would haunt her dreams if she and her wife ever went abroad.

The woman paused, then came over and put a hand on Callie's shoulder. It was likely meant to comfort her but it felt more perfunctory than that. "You all will be safe. We can promise that. Just…bask in the glory of the dead being brought back to life."

"Will she…will she tell me what happened?"

The hand dropped from her shoulder, "She might. She might not. But **don't** get hung up on it. That's the worst thing you can do."

"How do you—"

"I've been around the block doctor. Seen and experienced quite a bit. People in her position are irrevocably changed by what happened, but they also want normal again. And that's going to be your job."

####

They boarded the plane in silence. The two men who'd escorted Callie to the house returned with her and kept a wary eye on Arizona, who took a seat next to the window and blindly reached out to hold Callie's hand. It was dark outside. Well, past midnight and the only lights visible were on the wings of the plane.

Callie wanted to say something to her wife, but she also knew Arizona, and she wasn't one for loquaciousness when she was hurt. She liked to process things and only then would she speak. Eventually Callie knew she'd have to push her. Whatever had happened wouldn't come from her lips easily, but it could wait for now.

She contented herself with just watching her wife. Her skin was darker than it had been. Bronzed. The same sun that had tanned her skin had bleached her hair and left it looking more brittle then it usually was. It had given her lines too. Small ones around her mouth and her eyes. Aging her and giving her a wariness that shattered Callie's heart.

Because whatever had happened to her had been physical to some extent. She knew that. Saw it in the limp and the cast on her hand, but it had also been psychological. It had worn away her wife's veneer until the fragile creature beneath peeked through.

Unconsciously she raised her wife's hand to her lips and held it there. The skin of her hand was dry. Doctors were naturally prone to dry skin. The constant scrubbing and the latex gloves leached all the moisture from their skin. But she'd always had soft hands before. Even kept a little bottle of lotion in her coat pocket.

She felt the hand move against her face—gently stroking her lips with her knuckle. She smiled and Arizona, still staring out the window, smiled too.

When they arrived back at the airport Callie gave their special friends her address and leaned back. Arizona frowned, "You moved."

It was the first word she'd said since they'd gotten on the plane. "Yeah. About six or seven months ago. Down the hill from Meredith's." She rolled her eyes, "And next door to Mark."

Arizona processed that. "I should have—it makes sense that you would have moved."

"It's a nice place. You'll like it."

She swallowed and reached across the middle seat to grasp Callie's hand again. "I'll love it," she said trying more to assure herself then Callie.

"It's a big piece of land too. I used some of my trust to buy it. Plenty of space for a chicken coop."

Arizona smiled softly. Then frowned again, "Why didn't you use the life insurance?"

"I never—I couldn't file the paperwork to declare you—"

"I never died," she asked in a delicate voice.

"Never."

Tears welled up in her eyes and she surged across the seat to kiss Callie. "I love you," she said, "so much."

Callie wrapped her hands around Arizona and tucked her head into the crook of her shoulder. "I do too," she whispered into her ear. "I do too."

####

The neighborhood was dark when they drove up and when she peaked at the dashboard clock she saw it was past three. The agent in the passenger seat turned around and handed her her cellphone, which showed a plethora of missed calls, texts and messages. She winced at having to cycle through it all and remembered what she'd been told at the compound. The press knew. Which meant others might have heard. Scanning quickly over the texts in her notification bar she saw they were all from friends and family looking for confirmation. She glanced over and Arizona who was fighting to keep her eyes open.

They could deal with all that later.

Taking her wife's hand she said, "Come on. I think it's time for a hot bath and bed."

Arizona agreed and they said their goodbyes to the agents and walked up the steps to the house. The lights on the front porch automatically flicked on by their approach and startled Arizona, who tensed up and gripped Callie's hand so tight she thought she might bruise it.

"Hey, it's okay. Just the motion sensors."

That didn't fully appease Arizona, whose eyes searched the darkness now made more prominent by the light. Then she blinked and the tension ebbed out of her. "Sorry," she said weakly. "I—"

"It's all right Arizona. Come on. A tour, bath and bed."

Only as soon as they stepped into the house Callie's phone started ringing again. It was Barbara. Arizona looked from the phone to her wife. It was a quick and silent agreement. Arizona would explore and Callie would handle the call.

####

As houses went it was a nice one. There was an idyllic quality to it and even though Callie had likely decorated all on her own she'd still left distinctly feminine touches that were wholly unlike her usual taste. It didn't feel like a Batcave and something about that made it easier to process. Another reminder that while she was away Callie was busy keeping her alive.

She could hear her in the kitchen talking to someone. Mark? Her parents? Callie's? She quickly tuned out the conversation. She was good at that now.

The downstairs was made up of a formal dining room, a huge kitchen she knew Callie had played an integral role in designing, a living room and some big Callie space that was part office but primarily swanky entertainment center replete with video games and a tv as wide as Arizona was long.

And there wasn't a single picture in the place. It took her a minute to figure out what it was unsettling her and once she saw the lack of pictures she couldn't unsee it.

Sure there was art. Lots of art. Including many of her own pieces. But there wasn't a single photograph.

Then she went upstairs. As soon she stepped onto the second floor there was the distinct impression in being in another place. A private one. A ridiculous number of photos of Sofia lined the walls of the hall. Photos Arizona even remembered taking. Tears unbidden sprung up and ran down her face. This was her daughter. Alive and happy and well and chronicled for her to see all that she had missed. And sprinkled among those photos were ones of grandparents. **Her** parents**. **And Callie, and an alarming one that made it look like Callie and Meredith Grey were friends.

And there were photos of Arizona. Her hand rose involuntarily to her lips when she saw the first one, and it stayed there through the last. She hadn't—when Tim died so much of him disappeared. They all had photos and mementos but they hid them away for moments of private grief. Callie proudly displayed her past on these walls.

She had to lean against the wall to catch her breath and her leg twinged. It had been acting up lately. Ever since the escape. The dull ache that had become a part of her suddenly ever present and agonizing. She punched the center of her thigh sharply and the pain diminished.

Then she opened one of the doors. She had no idea which was her wife's room and which was her daughter's and which was just a hall closet.

But the very first door she opened led her into a child's room. Pinks and purples and blacks. The room was empty. Sofia was with her father, but this was her room. There was her bed, perfectly made. The last time she'd seen her daughter she'd been in a crib. Now she was big enough for a bed, and a play area with a tiny table and chair. Artwork was stuck to the wall and Arizona didn't even bother to stop the flow of tears. She couldn't have stopped crying even if she'd wanted to.

She'd missed it. Somewhere in those first few years of life a child went from being a squalling and mewling thing on which people imprinted a personality to becoming an actual autonomous human being. They built their own personality. They became sentient. They became…she missed her daughter's moment. Missed the slow and astounding change. It had been something she'd looked forward too. Even when she was her bitterest during Callie's pregnancy she'd consoled herself with that. The idea of seeing a person growing up into a person had excited her.

And she'd missed it.

She started to leave the room when she noticed the photo on the nightstand. She'd missed her daughter but her wife had made sure Sofia never missed her. It was a photo Mark had taken of the first time she'd held her daughter outside of the OR. Arizona was dressed in a pink gown and her hair was up in surgical braids and she looked exhausted. She remembered it well. A fiancé and daughter in the ICU was enough to kill a lot of people but she'd powered through.

And she remembered that very moment. The first time she got to hold her daughter in her arms. Her skin was so thin then. Even her bones were brittle enough to break with what felt like a look. She'd felt her daughter's heart flutter beneath her fingers and watched her tiny mouth open in a yawn. She'd cried then too. Happy just to **have** a daughter. And a fiancé. And a life.

Mark had managed to capture it all on his phone and he sent the picture to her later with some asinine joke reminding her of how she'd never wanted children. Mark had taken the photo and Callie must have framed it. The frame was meant for a child, with soft edges and bright colors and she liked to think her daughter handled it often and that maybe, just maybe, she'd know her mother on sight.

####

"It's true?"

Callie leaned against the kitchen counter. She spoken with Barbara and Daniel who were already looking at flights to come out and then she'd called Mark. He hadn't been asleep despite the lack of lights from next door. Instead he'd been sitting up texting Callie and watching the few news reports he'd found about Arizona over and over again.

"It is."

"How?"

"I don't know. She hasn't—we haven't had a chance to talk about it yet."

"Are you okay?"

Upstairs Arizona turned the water on in the tub. Sofia wasn't allowed to run the bath by herself so Callie had never had the opportunity before to actually hear that noise. It was just a tiny piece of domesticity but she sucked in a ragged breath all the same.

"I'm good Mark. My wife is back from the dead."

"Now I feel bad about trying to get you to sign those papers."

She laughed.

"Do you want me to bring Sofia over?"

"No. No. She seems a little…skittish right now. I think I should maybe ease her into this if that's okay?"

"Sure."

She hung up and mounted the stairs. Arizona had turned the lights on in the hallway and left every door she'd peeked behind open. Callie closed the doors and shut off the lights then rooted around in her dresser for some clothes for Arizona to sleep in. She'd noticed coming up that Arizona had left the bag of clothes she had at the compound downstairs and she strongly suspected that wasn't an accident.

####

Arizona could not remember the last time she'd taken a bath. Literally. She couldn't remember it. She tried to. Looking down at the still waters of Callie's large tub she struggled to recollect the last bath she'd taken. She wanted to say it was on a trip with Callie. A medical conference. But she tried to bring up the memory and all she could remember was an emotion. The details had disappeared. Circumstances. Callie. It was all gone. Just that sense of complete satisfaction.

She pulled off her clothes and lowered herself into the tub. Her leg protested the movement and her broken arm wouldn't allow her to support herself properly but she nearly had it. But at the last moment she slipped and landed in the tub violently. Pain shot up her tailbone and water sloshed over the sides and spilled across the floor.

Her whole body tensed up with an involuntary swell of anger and she immediately flipped over and submerged her head and screamed. It reverberated through the water and off the surrounding tub. Then she settled. Floated face down with her eyes open.

Only Callie calling from the other side of the door was enough to bring her out of whatever space she'd just gone to. Just the sound of her wife's voice soothed her. Her heartbeat slowed and the blood pounding in her ears dulled to a low roar. She flipped over and sat up, drawing her knees up to her chest.

Callie poked her head in. "You okay? I thought I heard something."

"I'm fine," she said. Though the ragged quality of her voice said otherwise.

Callie held up some clothes. "I brought some—here are some clothes for tonight."

"Thank you."

Callie started to approach the tub but caught herself and looked away sharply. In fact the entire time she'd been in the bathroom she'd been trying to look anywhere but in Arizona's direction.

Arizona wanted her wife back. She wanted the comfort of her warm arms wrapped around her and she wanted to see the desire she often used to see in Callie's eye. She didn't want this. Two strangers.

"I'll be out in a second."

Callie started to leave, but paused at the door. "I love you."

It was such an easy phrase and in that moment it was everything Arizona needed.

"I love you too."


	4. Part 4

**Title:** Just Two Weeks 4

**Author:** Maggiemerc

**Rating:** M (on account of violence, and a little sexy times?)

**Status:** In Progress

**Pairings:** Callie/Arizona

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of these characters. It is a tragedy I suffer through daily.

**Spoilers: **This takes place before the final three episodes of Season 8. So certain people are alive and certain people don't even exist.

**Summary:** It was supposed to be two weeks in Africa. Arizona could do that in her sleep. Then things happened.

**Part 4**

No one called Callie. Mark couldn't do much. Truth be told he didn't know what he **should** do, but he could at least let his best friend reunite with her wife in peace and quiet. So he sat near the window facing Callie's house and played with his daughters and made sure no one showed up on Callie's doorstep with a casserole and an ear for gossip.

And her other friends, Bailey and Meredith in particular, were kind enough—no smart enough—to call Mark instead of Callie. Bailey expressed muted shock. Meredith something between elation and confusion.

But eventually it had to happen. A car pulled up to the curb and the red headed chief of surgery stepped out. He wasn't in chief mode though. He was wearing a tight fitting and expensive long sleeve t-shirt that Mark, an abject clothes hound, could appreciate well enough, and jeans. The opposite of chief mode. Mark actually couldn't remember a time he'd seen the other guy outside of a shirt and tie since he'd been elevated to the position.

He headed towards the entry to Callie's home and Mark had to scramble to the front door with his youngest daughter still in his arms. "Owen," he called out. Part curious and part warning. The other man froze.

"Mark."

"What are you doing here Hunt?"

He sort of waved towards Callie's house. "I was—uh—I was stopping by."

"They've been home less than twelve hours. Don't you think you could give them a little more time?"

Owen looked back towards the house. Almost…painfully. Mark narrowed his eyes. Stood stock still and waited for a response.

"Yes," Owen finally said. He crossed the flower bed that served as a delineation mark between the two properties. "How is she?"

"Arizona?"

"Callie."

"She's fine."

"Mark, I'm just here as a friend. This isn't about work or-"

Mark shook his head knowing full well what was going through the other guy's head. "Lexie is cooking breakfast. Want to come in?"

Owen looked back towards Callie's and sighed. "Sure," he said-looking awfully defeated, "breakfast sounds good."

Sofia brightened immediately upon seeing him and ran up expecting hugs and play dates, the adoptive godfather immediately acquiesced and Mark shot his wife a look, letting her know that comments about Owen's presence in their kitchen would be unwelcomed.

####

At nights they'd often slept on the same side of the bed. Callie would spoon Arizona and they'd fall asleep wrapped up in each other and wasting all that space on the mattress. Other times Callie would sprawl over half of the bed and Arizona would sleep on her side—hogging all the pillows and watching her girlfriend sleep.

But that first night back they slept like the dead on the tops of coffins. Statues carved into place and unmoving. A space the span of Callie's forearm lay between them. That was how they fell asleep. When Callie woke up Arizona was curled up into a tight little ball. She'd slept in some of Callie's old sweat pants and a hooded sweatshirt and the hood was up over her head.

She wanted to reach out and touch her. Confirm she was real. Confirm it wasn't all a dream but something stopped her. The rigid way Arizona slept. It wasn't normal.

She started to get out of bed.

"Callie?"

It was a whisper in the pale light of the morning.

"Yeah?"

Arizona rolled over and looked at her with bright blue eyes she'd thought lost forever. "Stay."

She didn't need to hear the plea a second time. She laid back down on her side and stared at her wife. Smiled. Arizona smiled too. By some unspoken agreement Callie pulled her into a hug. Their legs intertwined and she felt her wife burrow into her chest. She squeezed tightly and Arizona sighed.

"I need time," she whispered against Callie's chest. "I—I'm trying but I just—"

Callie hushed her and kissed the top of her head. "It's okay. I'm pretty new to someone over the age of three sleeping in my bed."

The reminder of their daughter seemed to sooth Arizona. "She's with Mark," she rightfully assumed.

"And Lexie and the baby."

Arizona leaned back—shocked by the word "baby."

"Their baby," she quickly amended. "I'm just Callie to her—when she starts talking."

"Mark and Lexie have a baby?"

She nodded. "And they live next door. Meredith and Derek live up the hill. Bailey and the Chief are still here. Alex…Alex and Cristina aren't. And Teddy's with MEDCOM now. She visits though. I think she and Owen might be doing it."

"He and Cristina—"

"Divorced. You'd be proud of Alex though. He's at John Hopkins."

Arizona laughed, "Wow, I had pull in the afterlife."

"Apparently."

Callie pulled her wife to her tighter and closed her eyes. Eventually they both grew tired and the sound of their own breath lulled them back to sleep. When she woke later Arizona was still wrapped around her and she allowed herself a smile—and maybe just a little hope that things could, eventually, be normal again.

####

"Lexie and Mark got married?"

They were eating toast and having orange juice despite it being one o'clock in the afternoon. Arizona was still wearing her giant sweatshirt and Callie, wanting to make her feel at home, had put a better fitting one from her alma mater.

"They did. And they have a daughter. Sofia and Zola have already been caught plotting her demise twice now."

That earned a smile. "I can't wait to see them."

"We can go say hi if you want. I think Lexie actually had surgery with Derek today. She's neuro, but Mark was taking the day off to stay…close to home and he's got Sofia and the," she made a football shape with her hands, "baby."

"I had to miss out on more than two years Callie. I don't want to miss out on anymore…but I would like to just-can it just be you and me today?"

She'd expected her wife to be distant maybe. Fretful. Fragile. But the woman opposite her was the same self assured woman she'd fallen in love with. Only a little older. Gentler seeming.

"Yeah," she smiled bashfully, "That sounds nice."

Arizona glanced down at her sweatshirt. "And I guess I need clothes."

"Actually," Callie stood up and came around the kitchen table. She held her hand out to her wife. "Come on."

Arizona looked at her curiously but took the offered hand.

"I guess I was having trouble letting go—or something and everyone was about ready to have me committed, but," Callie led them to the upstairs hallway and to the door at the end of the hall which led into the attic. "I saved some stuff."

Some stuff could really be considered "all stuff." Everyone, **everyone**, had begged her to get rid of Arizona's clothes. Keeping a few keepsakes was normal, but holding on to her dead wife's belongings was creepy and obsessive. In the end she'd settled on a personal compromise. She did get rid of a lot of Arizona's things, because she could admit it was a little bizarre. When someone died the first thing you got rid of was their clothes. All underwear and worn out jeans.

But she couldn't bring herself to get rid of everything.

####

Callie looked…timid. As though she were frightened by her own actions and by Arizona's response. But Arizona could only marvel at it. Her childhood had been spent moving from one base to another and to facilitate the move she and her brother each had trunks. She'd kept them through college and moves from Baltimore to Seattle and had even had them shipped to Africa during her first ill advised move there.

And Callie had kept them. She'd packed up some of Arizona's favorite clothes and shoes and jewelry and purses and put them in the two trunks. Time capsules to a previous life.

Never one for tears Arizona still had to fight them back at the sight. It was touching and horrifying and wonderful all at once.

She got it almost immediately. The funny little look on her wife's face. Because the final stage of grief was acceptance. They'd gotten rid of Timothy's clothes first thing off (outside of a big field coat Arizona refused to part with). As a kid on bases she'd watched her mother help more than one grieving widow sack up the remnants of a life gone scant days after notifications were received.

It was the appropriate way to handle things. And there in the attic of Callie's new home was the evidence of her own inability to process her grief. Another wife—another lover would not have kept the clothes.

She turned, her words failing her, "Callie I…"

Her wife smiled sadly, "It's crazy. Right? But we didn't have a body. They wouldn't officially confirm you dead. Your mom said some wives held onto their husband's things for years after they went MIA. And I just…"

MIA. That's what she'd been. No body. Officially missing. Suspected dead. In those cases it was left up to the family to determine things. To give up hope or cling to it for an eternity. Her wife had never grieved because her wife had never thought her truly gone.

She couldn't even sign the papers having Arizona declared dead.

"It's not crazy."

"Yeah?"

She nodded. "Yeah."

She held her hand out as an invitation and Callie climbed the last few steps into the attic. She had to stoop just a touch, the few inches that separated them in height just enough to make her too tall for the room.

"Thank you," Arizona whispered. She stood tall on the balls of her feet and kissed Callie gently.

They parted and both smiled. It wasn't quite bashful. Callie brushed her bangs away from her face. She'd kept it long since Arizona had last seen her. Her bangs used to be prone to fraying without ample hair products but during her pregnancy Callie's hair had grown thicker and it hadn't thinned out afterwards. So her bangs were thick and swept across her forehead effortlessly.

She reached up and rubbed a few strands of dark hair between her fingers. Callie's breath caught in her throat. Her eyes were warm and wide and…trepidatious. It was so natural to let Callie's hair fall from her fingers so she could instead stroke her face with the tips of her fingers.

She hadn't touched another person in so long. She had. Physically. She'd healed and killed and pushed others away, but this was so different. This was the real thing. Her wife's skin beneath her fingertips. Pliable and soft. She didn't have to ask permission. Didn't have to worry about what would happen. The only consequences to her actions would be good ones.

So she took her time. Found her wife again in the darkness of the attic. She traced the sculpted arch of her brow. The velvet smoothness of her lips. They were damp and a single finger dipped into her mouth. A slick tongue darted out to meet it before retreating. Down further to the racing pulse on Callie's neck.

She'd taken the pulse of a hundred men. Felt hearts beat sluggishly and with fury, but none beat like her wife's. The pads of her fingers met with goose pimples as her hands moved lower. They halted at the neck of Callie's shirt and she looked up for permission. And Callie gave it wordlessly. She pulled her sweat shirt off. She wasn't wearing a bra and a hot and pleasant ache shot through Arizona at the sight of supple breasts.

God she'd missed her wife's boobs.

Her left hand spread wide over the small of Callie's back and pulled her forward. Her right hand tangled in those thick, dark locks of hair and tugged her down into an ardent kiss that fueled the roiling heat inside of her. Callie's hands rose up to cup Arizona's face and she normally hated it when people touched her face but she didn't care. She disappeared into the kiss. Her hands were independent of her and quickly shoved Callie's pants down to the floor.

She pushed and pushed and Callie came to rest on her back with Arizona hovering over her. She was so perfect beneath her. Giving. Calm. Passionate. Hers. Her fingers drove into the slick heat between Callie's thighs and she swallowed her wife's gasps of ecstasy.

She needed all of Callie. Needed to find herself again. She kissed her neck. Bit and licked and kissed her way down the dark undulating body beneath her. It swelled beneath her tongue and teeth. She rolled Callie onto her side and pillowed her head on her thigh and marveled at how wet her wife was. Her finger reached out to trace her wife's labia and Callie gasped. So she kissed her. As natural as breathing and in the intervening years she'd forgotten it. The smell of her wife's arousal. The taste of her. Her eyes closed. And she disappeared into the sensations.

####

They'd just had sex on the floor of the attic. There were bugs in the attic. Spiders and crickets and all sorts of things Callie really didn't want near her. But she couldn't have cared less. Arizona was still resting her head on Callie's thigh and gently stroking her extremely sensitive flesh.

"Baby," she gasped, "you need to stop." She didn't think Arizona had even realized what she was doing. She looked lost and enamored all at once. And blinked sleepily at Callie's words. Blindly Callie reached down and grabbed the still wandering hand and pulled it up to rest on her stomach.

There.

She closed her eyes and caught her breath. Spreading her legs and rolling back onto her back Callie tugged her still fully dressed wife up the length of her body. They kissed again but this time it was more casual. The comfortable kisses they'd share at home after a bottle of wine and Sofia was put to bed.

Slowly the kisses tapered off and Arizona sighed and rested her head on Callie's bare chest.

"I'm sorry," she said.

Callie couldn't even begin to guess for what. She stroked her wife's head and said nothing. Arizona would say her piece in her own time and pressuring her too soon always seemed to have ended in disaster.

"I had a million fantasies about the first time we'd have sex again."

She raised an eyebrow and waited for Arizona to continue.

"There was the super romantic and messy rose petals and champagne and chocolate one."

"A personal favorite."

"And the doing you as soon as I saw you even if it was in the middle of an airport one."

"Hot if either of us were into exhibition."

"But mainly it was just you and me in our bed at our old place." She glanced up at some cobwebs caught in the light from a tiny window, "A gross attic was not among the fantasies."

"I don't know, I haven't gotten a splinter yet and I think that screaming I was doing scared off all the spiders."

Arizona grinned. "My wife. Her orgasmic screams terrify the eight legged."

"I'm like a really sexy brand of Off."

That earned a laugh. Deep and throaty. "I wish you'd been over there. The mosquitos were miserable. They gave me a choice between a blanket and a net and I chose the net and **still** got eaten alive."

"They gave you a choice?" A stupid question and she regretted it as soon as she asked it because Arizona's face fell just a fraction. Imperceptible to most.

She tried to smile, the one that was just an act and shouldn't have fooled anyone but often did anyways. "It's not a big deal." She changed the subject—ever the escape artist, "I'm hungry for a grilled cheese. Do we have cheese? I don't think I've had cheddar or american since I left."

She didn't wait for Callie to confirm or deny the existence of cheese. She stood up shuffled down the attic steps, but paused just as her before her head disappeared.

"I love you."

Callie set up on her elbows. "I love you too."

A brighter, more genuine smile flashed across Arizona's face. "How do you want your grilled cheese? Moderately deadly to your heart or super deadly?"

"Super for sure."

####

The grilled cheese might have gotten out of hand. Callie had a cheesemonger's worth of cheese in the fridge and Arizona, having not cooked anything more than soup or rice in ages, went overboard. Butter, cheddar, American and cream cheese all collided with some rustic artisan bread from a fruity health food store to create monstrosities so rich Arizona nearly gagged.

"You okay?"

She nodded and cracked open the sparkling water and chugged half of it. The bubbles cut the fat and calmed her stomach and she sighed in relief. Callie stopped watching her once she was satisfied Arizona wasn't going to vomit all over the kitchen table, and resumed flipping through the mail.

Arizona snatched up what she discarded and looked through it. "You have apparently become dangerously addicted to cigars."

Callie rolled her eyes. "I bought your dad **one** box of fancy cigars and now I can't escape them. They sent me a flyer the other day begging for donations to help halt the government's war against premium tobacco."

"A terrible crime."

"And I know for a fact your father's only smoked a quarter of the box."

She took another bite of her sandwich and it went down much easier. "Dad doesn't really even smoke. Mom's the big stogie fan." Her mom used to knit while smoking cigars as big as Arizona's foot. The whole house would reek of tobacco. Thankfully the overwhelming smell also masked the skunky weed Tim "found" at school. It was a wonder her lungs hadn't gummed up with tar eons ago.

Callie came across a fancy lavender colored envelope, read the return address and groaned in annoyance. She flicked the envelope across the table and towards the pile of junk mail that was accruing, but Arizona reached out quick as a snake and snatched it up.

"You're not even going to open it?"

"No."

It smelled like artificial raspberries. "Do you have a secret lover who only shops at Claire's and Bath and Body Works?"

Callie was repulsed by the suggestion.

The address struck a familiar note in Arizona's head and curiously she opened it.

"We don't have to go," Callie was quick to say.

It was an invitation. Zola was turning four. "This is tomorrow."

"Meredith has been harping on me to go for weeks. **That **was a blatant attempt at manipulation."

The invitation, unconventionally, had been signed by the birthday girl herself, and in the shaky scrawl of a toddler she'd pleaded with Callie to not miss her special day.

"Oh this is disgustingly cute."

"The girl is a genius. When she and Sofia work together they can topple world governments with a look."

"She even wrote your whole name, 'Calliope.' And drew a picture of a harp."

"Because she's hot to trot about Greek mythology and apparently I'm named for a muse."

"We have to go." Arizona wanted normal and happy and everything she missed. Birthday parties full of small children and old lost friends was the perfect way to ease back in.

But her wife, never one for subtly, let her disbelief show. "Really?"

"It'll be fun! And you can't deprive a growing child of her muse Calliope."

"It's just—your parents will be here tomorrow. And Sofia…"

"Will be at the party. That would probably be good right? Meeting her in a safe place full of her friends?"

Arizona really had no roadmap for how to reintroduce herself to her daughter. She knew a little about it what with being a daughter of a Marine in the seventies. Periodically the dead would return to life. The lost would be found. But her parents had guarded her and Tim from those stories and families and all she really knew was that it was never ever easy.

"She's at Mark's right now Arizona. We could just walk over."

No. "No." Her heart was suddenly racing at the idea of seeing her daughter. With Callie there had been only anticipation. Her wife was a known entity. Her daughter—children could be fickle. Cruel without intent. Obtuse without realization. Villains without knowing. "I'm not ready," she whispered in horror.

Because until that moment she had even realized it.

She had a daughter. A daughter who only knew her from photographs and anecdotes. A daughter who had another mom and a sister and a life that Arizona had never been a part of. For she and Callie two and a half years were a heartbeat. For a child they were a lifetime.

Callie's chair scraped loudly agains the tile and she came around and knelt next to Arizona. "Hey, Sofia knows you Arizona."

Her wife. The mind reader. "She knows pictures."

"She knows she has a mom who loves her and misses her. And you're always talking about how resilient kids are. She'll be fine. I mean, in a couple of years she won't even remember you were ever gone!"

That wasn't helping. She frowned.

"That was probably the wrong thing to say," Callie noted.

It really was.

"But you have to believe me Arizona, Sofia loves you and you have **nothing** to fear."

But that was the problem. She had plenty to fear because fear wasn't rational. You weren't afraid of the dark because it was dark. You were afraid of all the silly things that were never there but **could** be. The zombies and ax murderers and frightening men with AKs and bayonets.

Fear was that moment before the scalpel pressed to the skin and the eyes rolled up into the head. Before the hand came down hard and cracked against the cheek. Fear was the stench of rotting flesh and the wistful look of a man who only knew French.

She shuddered. She wasn't scared of Sofia. She was scared of everything else.

####

Their home had a huge deck with a view worth millions. Meredith was loathe to admit it because she liked to always act ambivalent about the house but she loved that view. She liked to sit out there with a glass of wine or a cup of coffee and watch the clouds go by.

Her friends and family liked it too and even though none of them actually lived with her anymore she still often found one of them sitting on the deck and worshipping the view. That afternoon she found Owen Hunt. He'd picked up some beers and put them in a cooler and brought them with him.

They weren't close. He'd go fishing with Derek and he and Callie were good friends but he was always the man that ran Cristina off in her book. She still came to visit but because of him Seattle would never be her home again.

He saw her come outside and held out a beer.

"It's three in the afternoon."

He agreed. "I went by. To see Callie."

First Cristina and then Callie, the only things they'd ever have in common.

"Mark says she's okay."

"I just had to see. I called Teddy—at MEDCOM, she didn't know anything about this. Apparently the CIA picked her up out in the Congo and held on tight."

Arizona Robbins, their taste of the world of international intrigue.

"What do you want Owen?"

"You know Callie is my only friend?" She did. She questioned Callie's taste in friends but had always kept her mouth shut. "How is she?"

"I don't know."

"People come back from war Meredith. They change. Irreparably."

She narrowed her eyes, "You think Robbins is like you. That she'll choke Callie in her sleep."

He clenched his jaw and looked away.

"Whatever happened to just being glad someone was alive? Back from the dead," she pressed.

"I didn't think Meredith Grey believed in optimism."

She didn't. She actively despised it. But Zola tempered the hate, and seeing her friend experience an actual miracle—seeing a woman dead come back to life. "I think today we can might be able to afford a little optimism."


	5. Part 5

**Title:** Just Two Weeks 5

**Author:** Maggiemerc

**Rating:** M (on account of violence, and a little sexy times?)

**Status:** In Progress

**Pairings:** Callie/Arizona

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of these characters. It is a tragedy I suffer through daily.

**Spoilers: **This takes place before the final three episodes of Season 8. So certain people are alive and certain people don't even exist.

**Summary:** It was supposed to be two weeks in Africa. Arizona could do that in her sleep. Then things happened.

**Author's Note: **Did you forget about this story? I didn't! I was worried there would be a lot of crossover with what's going on in the show but the more I thought about both the more I realized that wasn't the case. So here's another chapter. Feel free to go back and read the previous ones if you have no idea what's going on.

**Part 5**

Arizona came down the stairs for dinner wearing a pair of her own pajama pants and her lacy black coverup that she'd had forever. Callie had left her to sort through her clothes and explore more. Not because she didn't want to be by Arizona's side for every second of every day for the rest of her life, but because she knew her wife was the most emotionally claustrophobic person she'd ever met and if Callie hovered it would end with whatever spell that was cast on them breaking.

There was peace and Callie was bound and determined to maintain it and the healthy glow of joy it brought with it as long as possible.

"Hey," she said brightly. "So I've got a load of corn meal and some left over chorizo and I was thinking arepas for dinner. If you're okay with that?"

"Sounds good. I subsisted on plantains, rice and soup so pork and corn would be heaven sent."

She limped further into the room and slid into the chair at the breakfast table with a groan.

Callie was going to ask about the leg but Arizona set a half empty pack of cigarettes on the table. Callie poured her wife a glass of wine and pushed it across the table then sat and waited for her to speak.

It was the look Arizona had. Her face was screwed up in thought—planning a speech just for Callie. It was one of her little quirks.

"I started smoking again." She hated that Arizona smoked in times of crisis but she wasn't going to get mad now. "I was being held hostage and this was just—it was the only thing that I could really keep just for me." She looked up almost nervously in search of understanding. She must have found it because she continued, "And I'm home now and I think I should quit. I don't need it any more."

"Okay." What else was there to say?

"Am I moving too fast?"

Callie shook her head.

Arizona sighed and rubbed at her face, "I just—I had these two years where nothing was right. And all I want is to get back to right again."

"Arizona, whatever choice you make I'll support it—within reason," she quickly amended, "I won't support you leaving me or something."

"I would never—" she said sharply.

"That was a joke."

"I know." Arizona was just a little grumpy at missing it and she quickly, and for some odd reason, punched her bad leg hard.

"Is your leg okay?"

"Just sore."

"I can look at it."

The leg, having had attention called to it, seemed to bother Arizona more. She rubbed it through her pants, using her thumb to dig deep into the muscle. "It'll be fine. It's been acting up since I escaped. I probably just pulled something."

Callie came around the table and knelt next to her wife. She started to put her hands on her but paused and looked up for permission.

"It was hurt in the crash," Arizona said softly. "There was infection."

Gently Callie put her whole hand on Arizona's thigh. She just rested it there. Allowed it to sit lightly on her leg. She could feel, through the palm of her hand, the malformation. Whatever infection there had been was severe. The changes to what should have been a smooth plane of muscle were extreme and irrevocable.

Arizona's hand covered her own. Pressed her hand down. Forced her to feel it through the cloth. "I don't want to hide anything," she whispered.

Her other hand grasped Callie's chin and pulled her up into a kiss.

Callie manipulated the muscle beneath her hand. Massaged it with sure and even strokes. Her wife gasped. Fell away from the kiss. Her cheeks were flushed all of a sudden, and Callie could feel thoughts of dinner disappearing. She leaned forward to catch Arizona's lips with her own but her wife's hand on her shoulder gave her pause.

"Stop." Arizona pushed her back. Not as gently as she maybe meant too. "Stop. Sorry I just."

"What?" Callie didn't move but let her hand simply rest on Arizona's thigh.

"I just," she sighed and scooted back. Away. "I think we almost moved too fast just then."

She could have pointed out that Arizona had said herself she wanted to move on. She could have pointed out that Arizona herself had stripped Callie bare and made love to her in the attic. It was nothing but reciprocation.

But she didn't.

"Okay."

"Callie…"

"No. I know. You need time. And I shouldn't have touched your leg and—"

Arizona snatched her hand before she could pull too far away. "It's not you Callie." She squeezed tight. "Please…it's not you."

She was so damned passionate in that moment. Earnest and yearning. Her eyes were wide and just shy of desperate. The frustration that had suddenly flared up in Callie eked away and she smiled. "I know," she said softly. She **did** know. It was hard to remember but she knew. It wasn't about her or what she'd done. It was about what had happened to Arizona and where she'd been.

Callie leaned in and pressed her lips lightly to the corner of her mouth. Arizona's free hand, the one still wrapped in a cast, reached up and held Callie close. "It'll get better," she promised.

"It's been a day," Callie tried to say soothingly.

"What—" She searched Callie's face for proof of something, "what did I do to deserve you?"

Callie didn't have an answer for that. Before they'd been separated she'd found herself waking up and rolling over and looking down at her wife and wondering the exact same thing.

####

Television!

Arizona was never a big television fan. Tim could plop down on the couch and watch it for hours and Callie had a passion for weird fantasy shows and video games that rivaled that of a teenage boy, but Arizona had always been content with the newspaper or a really good biography.

It was the drone of the television that caught her. After dinner she insisted she clean up the dishes and kicked Callie out of the kitchen. After a little hovering at the door Callie had finally agreed and disappeared into her giant TV room. The sound carried to the kitchen and Arizona found herself stuck at the sink, past her wrists in warm water and listening to what sounded like a football game.

A real American football game. Just playing. Casually. Going on like the world was normal. Tim had played football. He was an exceptional tight end that started most games. Arizona would always go and sit up in the stands with Nick and his sister and watch her brother play. Quietly she'd grown to love the sport. Never enough to get into it seriously, but enough to be okay with watching a game with Callie or tolerating Callie's affection for the Madden series on her XBox.

She'd forgotten the sound of it over the past two years. American football was precisely that, **American**. Like cheeseburgers or Callie's arepas. Okay those weren't American. They were just familiar.

It was like…like going back to John Hopkins after she graduated. There was a disconnect. At once the exact same and so familiar she could have fallen into old routines without a second thought, but then different. A constant reminder that time had passed and nothing really could be reclaimed.

She finished the dishes and peeled the big gloves off. It was harder getting it off the hand in the cast and she grunted and nearly cried in frustration before it snapped off—painfully tugging at the cast.

That fire she'd been trying to keep tamped down for weeks flared and she had to take a moment to breath in through her nose and out through her mouth rhythmically to stop it. Like the yoga Callie liked to do in the morning.

In.

Out.

The fire abated.

She put the offending gloves away in the drawer Callie had pulled them from and went to the TV room. Callie was lying across the couch blankly staring at the game on her giant TV.

"That interesting huh?"

Callie blinked and redirected her attention to Arizona. In an instant she was Callie again. With a warm smile and eyes glittering with tears she'd kept at bay all day and likely would keep at bay for months to come.

"It's an old one. I can change it—" she started to sit up and make room for Arizona.

"Or," her interjection gave Callie pause, "we could just watch the game."

Callie laid back on the couch but scooted into the cushions to make room for her. But her eyes narrowed in suspicion. "You hate football."

"I don't hate it."

"I spent four hours playing Madden online and you, and I quote, said, "I hate football." It was right after Cristina and Owen moved out."

"I hated my girlfriend playing Madden when I'd just gotten Chungking Express on Blu-Ray in the mail. There's a difference."

That earned a smile. Callie patted the couch and Arizona took her up on the offer. She was surprised at how easily her back molded into Callie's front. At how easily she took to something as simple as touching. She'd been afraid, though she didn't think she could ever admit it out loud.

Her experience had been traumatizing. She recognized that and she suspected that when held in her wife's arms there'd be flashbacks. Moments of horror like out of a movie.

But it was just easy. A life drifting back into place.

Callie's warm lips pressed to the bare skin of her neck. "What you thinking about?"

"How easy this is." Once upon a time she would have said nothing at all.

Another kiss. Callie ran her hand gently over Arizona's arm. "I know what you mean."

"I feel like I should be…I don't know, freaking out? Or that we should be distant or that I should be crying instead of curled up on the couch watching the Seahawks lose terribly. Would you look at them! Are they the Lions or something? That score is awful."

"I killed their QB's career a few years back and I don't think they ever recovered."

"And now you're making jokes. Are we doing this right?"

Callie squeezed her tight and again, it just provided comfort instead of a very rational sense of fear. "I don't think there's a manual for this."

"There should be."

The warm lips had moved to the juncture of her neck and shoulder. Callie lightly nipped at the muscle there. "Now you're just being grumpy." She promptly blew a very loud raspberry.

Arizona laughed and swatted her gently. She twisted in her arms and studied Callie who stared right back.

There were little things she'd forgotten. How Callie had freckles that were light enough that sometimes she didn't even need to cover them with make up. Or how there were strands of auburn hair in amongst the brown. Just enough to give her hair depth.

Or how pink her lips were.

Callie, usually one to be comfortable with long looks looked back up to follow the game.

####

During dinner Lexie had claimed that she was deeply grateful that Mark had never been into hunting. Otherwise, according to her, he would have been sitting in the front yard with a shotgun patiently waiting for reporters to arrive and harass the mothers of his child.

Thankfully Sofia hadn't been paying attention to their conversation. He'd texted Callie earlier about bringing Sofia over and she had declined. He didn't really know how it was going to go or how he should handle it.

Something told him breaking the news to her himself wouldn't be good. But just springing her dead mom onto her couldn't be good either. That was something they did in really bad soap operas. Like the kind he periodically caught Bailey watching in the lounge.

Callie really wouldn't bring her daughter home and just pull back a curtain and say ta da would she?

He contented himself by pulling half his lawn furniture into the front yard and watching for cars. Two news vans sat across the street in the empty lot no one had purchased yet because it backed up to a creek and was slowly crumbling into it. He shot them some threatening looks and dared them to come closer.

One reporter or blogger or something (he hadn't paid attention when they identified themselves) had shown up asking if he was Sofia's father and looking for a quote from him or a photo of his daughter. He'd used his height, which he'd never considered considerable, to intimidate the asshole off his property. Now the guy was wandering around the two vans and patiently waiting.

The sound of another car coming down the lane drew everyone's attention, but the news vultures relaxed when Derek's SUV pulled in behind Lexie's car. Zola was the first one out and shot across the lawn calling a hello out to Mark before shooting into the house to see her best friend. Meredith and Derek were slower and both cast glances over at the other house—which was dim despite the relatively early hour.

"Any word," Meredith asked.

"Callie texted me and said not to bring Sofia over."

Derek peeked through the door behind Mark, "Does she know?"

He shook his head and motioned to two of the other chairs he'd set out. They both took seats and Meredith reached across and pulled one of the beers out of the six pack at Mark's feet.

Derek noted it. "Classy."

He tipped his bottle towards the lot across the street, "The first one showed up about noon. Thought it might be a good idea to sit out here and make sure they don't do anything stupid."

Derek accepted a beer of his own and all three stared at the news vans while drinking their beer.

"It's like an excerpt from the Redneck Games out here," Lexie said from the door. "Did you bring **all** of the furniture from the backyard?"

"I left the fire pit!"

Meredith looked around her, "And the grill."

"Real class act. All three of you."

"We're doing this for Callie," Mark said in his defense.

Lexie glanced over at the other house. "Does she even know that a very tiny circus is growing out here?"

"Wouldn't know. Her cellphone is off and I'm pretty sure she unplugged the house phone."

"Has anyone seen **her**," Meredith asked.

By her she meant Arizona Robbins. The other mother of his child, long time haphazard nemesis and a woman he'd mourned two years earlier. He could recall what she looked like from pictures but he didn't have his wife's eidetic memory, so he couldn't see every hair and freckle. Couldn't immediately recall the shape of her mouth or the curve of her cheek. All he could remember was the hair and the smile and the eyes.

And the boobs.

But Lexie didn't need to know about that. They were all sort of floating around the essence of the woman he could not so easily recall.

He wondered how she'd look to him. Would the sight of her instantly wipe away the image built up around old memories and photos? Would he see the changes two and a half years had wrought or would she just be herself? Maybe a little tanner or more subdued or whatever the hell a person was after surviving in the jungle for two and a half years.

Derek spoke allowed a question almost as vital as his wife's, "What do you think happened?"

They spitballed ideas for half an hour. They ranged from Lexie's Tarzan scenario to Meredith's Homeland scenario to Mark's own Last King of Scotland idea that everyone agreed was too dark to be true.

"Okay so maybe she wasn't the doctor of a despot, but she was gone for two and a half years. No phone calls. No emails. That's not usual."

"For us," Derek countered, "the whole world isn't wired for wifi and there are a lot of places, especially in that region of the world, where you can't just call a taxi and get to the airport."

Mark didn't buy it, "I'm sorry but if I've got a wife and kid at home I'm not taking two and a half years to get to a pay phone."

The silence from the other three and Lexie's faint look of disgust told Mark he'd maybe gone a bit too far.

"Mark," Meredith leaned forward and put her hand on his knee, "there's some stuff you might know? That you still don't say."

"I know," he grumbled.

Lexie shook her head, "I married a monster. A monster!" She threw up her arms dramatically and went back into the house.

####

Someone loudly shouting "monster" pulled Arizona out of her Callie tunnel vision. She blinked and realized she'd dozed off staring at Callie's face. Callie held her tighter when she jerked up.

"It's just next door," she said quietly.

Arizona looked down at her. "Lexie?"

"She can get kind of vocal. Especially if beer and her sister are brought into play."

She started to say something, but had no idea what **to** day.

"I saw the lights from their car pull in. I'm pretty sure they're all sitting outside staring at the house wondering what we're doing."

That made sense. She rolled over so she was actually sitting on the couch and looked through to the living room and the windows that looked out onto Mark's property. Callie's hands fell so they were still casually wrapped around her waist and one hand in particular was content to lazily stroke her side.

"Should we go over there?"

"If you want to."

"I feel…it's rude right? To just hole up in my home with my wife."

Callie didn't say anything. That lazy hand snuck under Arizona's shirt and her nails lightly scratched the skin of her torso. Wow. She gasped. She hadn't expected that kind of…sensitivity.

"Whatever you want to do," Callie said. And she actually managed to make it sound genuine.

She knew exactly what she wanted to do. She leaned over Callie. Then she kissed her. Hard. She pressed her wife into the cushions and held her still with a hand. Callie wasn't quite as passive as she'd been in the attic. She moaned into Arizona's mouth before tugging at her shirt.

"I need you," she muttered into Arizona's mouth.

And she could feel the frantic want she'd unleashed in her wife with a kiss. And she could feel her own need. Warm and wet between her legs. Having divested Arizona of her shirt Callie's fingers tugged at the waist of Arizona's pants and then it all went wrong.

"I can't."

She tried to push away and Callie immediately released her. She ended up toppling back onto the ground and her broken wrist ached as the whole arm caught much of her weight.

She'd panicked. Her heart was beating impossibly fast and her pulse was racing and she was still incredibly turned on. But she'd panicked. Blown it and was stuck staring at her poor confused wife.

Damn it.

She could do it.

She launched herself at Callie again and tried to kiss away the awful feelings that were bubbling up out of the ichor of her soul. Terrible memories she needed to race past were instead standing between her and a normal life with her wife so she kissed her so hard she bruised Callie's lips.

But Callie didn't feel the urgency or need. Just the pressure and she slapped lightly at Arizona's shoulder. "Stop," she murmured against Arizona's lips. The slapping hand gripped her shoulder and pushed her back. "Arizona stop."

She broke away with a gasp.

She wanted to try again and another part of her saw her wife's terrified face and wanted to run but before she could do either Callie caught her cheek in her hand. "It's okay." Like she could see everything racing through Arizona's head.

"It isn't." She should be able to kiss her wife without feeling that other place pressing on her back. She should be able to just—slip into the world she'd lost.

Callie brought her other hand up and gently stroked her face. "I know." One hand fell down to her neck where her fingers lightly grazed over her racing pulse. "It'll be okay though. Eventually."

"I need—"

Her wife cut her off with a kiss that seemed to have every ounce of her love, support and passion in it. Arizona reached up to hold her hands like lifelines and greedily absorbed the emotion pouring out of her.

Every time Arizona tried to break away and say something Callie kissed her again. She slowly pushed Arizona back down into the couch and held her gently. The anger didn't disappear, but was quelled by Callie's touch.

"We'll get through this," she promised Arizona in a whisper.

She closed her eyes and let herself be held.

And prayed that Callie was right.

####

At three in the morning Callie woke up on the couch with an awful crick in her neck and Arizona perfectly content underneath her. She hadn't brushed her teeth before falling asleep and her mouth tasted like pork and paprika.

Arizona curled into a ball when Callie rolled off of her. The contentedness that seemed to only be found in sleep disappeared and a frown dragged her whole face down.

She studied her and their situation and then, carefully, tried to pick Arizona up in her arms. It was going to be romantic and sexy and chivalrous.

But grunted from the effort. Arizona wasn't exactly heavy, yet she was nearly as tall as Callie and Callie wasn't exactly a weightlifter. She stumbled and fell back into the couch dropping her wife in the process. Arizona's eyes snapped open. Her hand balled into a fist and the bottom of it cracked into Callie's jugular like she was trying to jam an invisible syringe into her throat. They both gasped. Arizona from shock and Callie for air.

"Oh my God, Callie!"

"I'm fine," she croaked. Her knees hit the floor a little harder than she would have liked.

"No you're not I hit—"

She reached out to touch Callie's neck but Callie grasped her wrist. "I am fine."

Arizona still looked horrified. She twisted her hand in Callie's to look at her own palm. "I don't know what happened." She was horrified. And deeply embarrassed.

"I spooked you."

"But I'm safe here," she countered, "I'm home and I'm safe." Her voice was cracking.

Callie wanted to kiss her and push away the dark feelings wrapping around her wife but was terrified to move forward. Not because she thought Arizona might hurt her, but because she thought she might scare Arizona.

"It's okay," she instead said softly. "We just have to be careful. Okay? I shouldn't have tried carrying you anyway. I think I broke my back."

That earned a frustrated smile. "Callie—"

"Come up to bed. We'll go to sleep. I'll be your personal blanket because it seems to work and we'll talk in the morning," she tried to look her in the eye, "Okay?"

Arizona's eyes flicked from her hand, still in Callie's and back to her. Her eyes were rimmed with red and she could see her fighting back tears again. The silent ones that were never quite shed. "Okay," she agreed with a nod.

Callie pulled her up and walked her up the stairs with her hand around her shoulder. They climbed into bed and Callie immediately spooned Arizona and pulled her as close as possible.

"Is this all right?"

Arizona said nothing. Just tried to burrow in deeper. Her breathing evened out quickly and within minutes she was back to sleep.

An hour later Callie finally fell asleep herself.


	6. Part 6

**Title:** Just Two Weeks 6

**Author:** Maggiemerc

**Rating:** M (on account of violence, and a little sexy times?)

**Status:** In Progress

**Pairings:** Callie/Arizona

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of these characters. It is a tragedy I suffer through daily.

**Spoilers: **This takes place before the final three episodes of Season 8. So certain people are alive and certain people don't even exist.

**Summary:** It was supposed to be two weeks in Africa. Arizona could do that in her sleep. Then things happened.

**Author's Note: **Welcome back to another issue of my most sporadically updated piece. But that's probably because I spend a LOT of time on each chapter making it just perfect minus the typos I can never seem to escape.

**Part 6**

Before Germany she never slept. She was always waiting. Always wary. There was never time to relax and when she did find herself relaxing she felt like a traitor. She was stuck being "on" for the better part of two and a half years. Then she made it out and they took her to Germany and she slept for a week.

The second week she tried to learn how to sleep again. Stuck in Idaho she made an attempt at it and failed. In Seattle, burrowed in a nest of blankets and comfort she woke early with the jolt of adrenaline that was her constant companion each dawn.

Beside her Callie was dead to the world and looked absolutely adorable. She placed a light kiss on her lips and slipped out from within her arms. She wouldn't be able to sleep—not any time soon. The clock said it was seven in the morning. Outside the sun slowly turned the sky pink with its lethargic rise.

She made a stop in the hall bath that had a children's stool under the sink and frogs on the shower curtain and washed her face and went to the bathroom. Out in the hall again she listened for movement. But Callie continued to sleep like a log.

It brought a smile to her face.

She walked downstairs and appreciated the feel of tile and carpet and hardwood floors beneath her feet. Over there she wore shoes nearly constantly—never sure when she'd get a chance to get away. Luxury was sleeping in bed with no shoes and walking through the house as the sun rose and not having to listen to a compound full of activity and voices in a myriad of languages.

In the kitchen she poked through the refrigerator and marveled at all the food. Not that food had been scarce. She'd been well fed. But here there was American Diet Coke and cheddar and cranberry juice and Oreos. Honest to God Oreos. She pulled one out and sniffed it. There was a strong scent of mint mingling with the chocolate and she double checked the package.

Mint Oreos.

Right. Callie used to keep them as a snack. "They're like Thin Mints but better!"

Arizona bit into the cookie and the mint cooled her tongue before being chased away by the cloying fabricated chocolate taste of the cookie. The fat of filling clung to the sides of her mouth.

It was quintessentially American. Taking her back to her grandparent's house and a big glass of milk while the TV blared I Love Lucy. Only in America could something be so chemical and so homey all at once. She snatched another cookie and took her time eating it.

The last bit went into her mouth and she let it slowly dissolve while she tried to sort out the coffee machine. It was not the one she'd left behind. It reeked of a gift from Mark. There were buttons and settings and far too much money in the thing.

It took her nearly ten minutes of close study to figure out how to get the thing working without also turning on the espresso bit or the obnoxiously loud and dangerous steam attachment.

Satisfied she'd figured it out she snuck back to the fridge for two more cookies. She'd probably feel sick later. Her diet for two and a half years had been anything but processed lard and sugar.

She didn't care.

She went back to the coffee machine and stared at it—willing it to finish brewing so she could pour two cups and surprise her wife in bed.

Giggling snatched her attention away from the machine.

A child—a girl was giggling. Instead of looking for the source she dropped to the floor. Her heart beat so fast she was sure she was about to hyperventilate and she gripped the counter surface and tried to calm herself.

The laugh was unmistakable. Part of her knew it because she was a mother and a mother never forgot their child's laugh. Even when she hadn't seen her since she was a baby the laugh was tucked away in a corner of her mind untouched by those two and a half years. There next to one special sunrise with Tim and Nick and Callie's arms around her voice in her ear telling her she was great.

And part of her knew that laugh through simple process of elimination. It was coming from Mark's house where her daughter was tucked away and absolutely perfect. She didn't know she had a mother back. She didn't know she needed one. She was an ecstatic child up early on a Saturday morning.

She pushed herself back up and peeked through the kitchen window.

And forgot to breathe.

She'd seen photos. Seen her room. Callie had described her. She knew intellectually who her daughter was. But seeing her changed everything.

She was no longer static. She was alive and glorious and so far from the tiny creature she'd held to her chest in the NICU. She was running back and forth acting out some game while Lexie watched her.

Her daughter.

Being mothered by someone else.

Her daughter.

Who'd grown without her.

All she could do was stare at her and absorb every little detail. Her dark hair like her mother's and the slight ruddiness of her complexion like her father and the way she ran with perfect form on chubby legs and grinned.

She wanted to run outside and call her to her and hold her in her arms but her whole body was shaking. She squeezed the counter top and stepped away from the window. She couldn't go out there.

She suddenly felt so inert. Stuck between wanting to move forward and the sudden urge to curl up in a ball and hope life lived past her. Carefully she picked up the two mugs of coffee and backed away from the tableau in Mark's back yard.

Some of the coffee sloshed out of her mug and burned her hand. She focused on that sensation instead. Feeling the heat and pain and tuning out everything else. That was familiar. That was comfort.

####

"Wake up pretty lady."

It was a dream. A warm and comfortable one where Arizona was alive and sitting on the bed with a fresh cup of coffee and a smile and her execrable existence of the last few years didn't exist.

It hurt.

Arizona's lips grazed Callie's and they felt so real.

Because they were. She focused on her wife and remembered the truth. Arizona wasn't the dream. She was the reality. She returned Arizona's smile and pushed herself into a sitting position. A quick glance at the clock told her it wasn't even eight.

"You're up early."

"Must still be on overseas time. I made coffee."

She offered Callie a cup that she accepted gratefully. It was straight black but Callie didn't complain. She'd been getting her own coffee for so long it felt odd to have it brought to her.

She took a long drought and watched her wife thoughtfully. Arizona held her bandaged hand and picked at the bandage with the other.

"Did you sleep…okay?"

She looked up. "Yeah," she said softly, "I slept really well."

"Because last night—"

"I saw Sofia."

"What?"

Arizona set her mug down on the bedside table. "I was getting coffee and she was outside with Lexie."

Callie kicked the sheets away and scooted closer to her. "Wha—did you—?"

A bitter little laugh escaped her lips, "I hid. I uh…I dropped to the floor." She glanced up at Callie, humiliated. "I couldn't—I hid from my own daughter."

She seemed as shocked by her actions as she was ashamed. Hesitant to look Callie in the eye but completely still. Her shadowed eyes were focused on some unseen point as she tried to process what she'd done.

Callie scooted closer. She wasn't sure what to say. She couldn't imagine hiding from Sofia. But she also couldn't imagine being in Arizona's shoes and never really knowing her own daughter in the first place.

Gently—slowly—she reached out and wrapped her hand around Arizona's arm. "Hey," she said softly. She tugged and Arizona fell into her lap, her bandaged hand brushing against Callie's leg and her good one curling around Callie's elbow.

Arizona had fine hair. It curled with a whisper and ran through Callie's hands like the thinnest of silks. She combed her fingers through the blond strands, finding as much comfort in the motion as she sought to give.

"It's okay." It had to be. Being scared. Running away. It was natural. Looking for solace in an embrace. It was what one did.

"I don't know how," she murmured. Her hand squeezed Callie's elbow. "I don't know how to do this."

She leaned down, the contortion forming a protest in her back, and kissed the top of Arizona's head. She didn't sit back up. This close she could feel her wife's tremors beneath her lips—too subtle to be felt by hand. "I know you don't honey." Arizona stopped shivering at the term of endearment. She smiled into Arizona's hair. "None of us do. But we're gonna try. We're gonna make a plan and we're gonna move forward."

"Like a surgery" was left unsaid. They were doctors. Pragmatic even when the world burned. Able to keep calm in a crisis with a gun to their heads. They developed plans and they stuck to them—saving lives in the process. Adjusting to their new circumstances was the same thing. Just make a plan and stick to it.

####

Mark took a large bite of his toast and crunched on it thoughtfully. Across from him his daughter never broke eye contact as she scooped cereal into her mouth. They were having an impromptu stare off. He wasn't sure why. Something about the munchkin.

"What are you up to," he asked with a full mouth.

"Nothing," she responded, her mouth equally full.

Lexie rolled her eyes and tapped them both on the head, "No talking with your mouths full."

They accused each other at the same time with false outrage and pointing fingers before Sofia returned to her cereal and Mark his toast. Silence stretched across the table, interrupted only by the crunching of breakfast foods and the littlest's Sloan's gurgles.

Sofia took part of the banana she'd been told to eat and surreptitiously put it on her sister's chair. Or as surreptitiously as a near four year old could. Lexie didn't even look up from the journal she was reading, "Don't even think about it."

"Mom says I don't have to eat bananas."

Mark knew that to be categorically false. "She does not."

"She says they're phallocentric and I don't have to eat them."

Mark was too stunned by his daughter's perfect enunciation to respond. Lexie's face screwed up into a thoughtful smirk. "That kind of makes sense. Oh God," horror dawned on her face, "Are we unconsciously forcing gender and sexual norms onto her with bananas?"

He looked from his wife to his daughter and responded with another hardy bite of toast.

"I guess we could make her eat oranges more. But if you situate the slices right than that's pretty vagocentric—" her face screwed up in thought— "Wait. Is that even a word?"

"Mijita is just trying to get out of eating her fruit. Right?"

"I hate bananas," she confirmed succinctly.

"Doesn't matter. Lexie put one on your plate so eat up."

She opened her mouth to protest and he held up his hand, "The faster you eat the faster you can go to Zola's for her party."

It was shameful bribing and it worked perfectly. His daughter's dark features brightened considerably. "The party's today?"

"It is. Now finish your breakfast."

Mark had finished his own breakfast and scooped up his and Lexie's plates, taking them to the sink and using the opportunity to spy on Callie. Her house was still, not unusual for the morning. If he wanted to he could stoop and see into her kitchen, but with his luck he'd make eye contact with her and get a death glare to end all death glares.

He expected something…different from the house. Arizona was over there and it just seemed as though it shouldn't appear so completely normal. Not that he thought there should be an energy or something—but a sign. Shades not pulled down like normal, or shoes by the back porch. Some tiny indication that his best friend's status quo had been changed for the better.

"Is Mom going to the party?"

Mark's hands froze over the plates and he looked over his shoulder at Lexie to find her equally rigid.

"Zola says there are gonna be confetti eggs and Mom thinks they're fun."

"I don't know sweetheart," Lexie said after glancing again at Mark. "She's…kind of busy at the moment. That's why you're staying with us."

Sofia didn't bother challenging that fact. Her face screwed up in annoyance and she stabbed at her banana with her spoon. It was zero to sulking. Then some bright idea dawned in her little head and she fell out of her chair.

"I'll go ask her!"

"No," he and his wife shouted as one. Startling one daughter into tears and sending the other tearing out of the room and up the stairs in rejection.

Lexie scooped her daughter up and shook her on her hip, "I guess we were a little to emphatic."

"She'll be fine."

"Have you even talked to Callie today? Because we can't keep hiding this from her Mark."

"I haven't, but I'm not—I don't really know **how** to handle this."

"Communication's probably a good start," she said with a tilt of her head.

Mark ran a hand through his hair, "Yeah, I guess. I could go to the back door. Peek in and see if she's up and about."

"Or call her."

Calling was definitely better. If she had her phone back on. He wasn't about to call the landline. That might lead to awkward conversations with the resurrected Robbins.

He dropped a kiss on Lexie's cheek and darted out of the room and up the stairs. He'd left his phone charging next to the bed. Callie didn't answer though. Maybe they'd had a late night? Or they were busy. Or the phone was off. Or— "Hey Callie I was just calling to, um, check? I didn't know what you wanted to do with everything. With Sofia? If you can call me later so we can, I guess, make a plan?" He pulled the phone away and started to press End when, "Oh! And tell Robbins hi. From everyone."

He plugged the phone back in and jogged downstairs. Lexie was still in the kitchen feeding their littlest and periodically glancing at a journal on the table.

"Any luck," she didn't even look up.

"Nope. She's still not answering." And his daughter was now cranky at them for saying no to seeing her mom. "What do you think about us all taking the ferry this morning? Before the party."

That got her to look up, "You hate the ferry."

"But Sofia loves it. And it'd get us all out of the house." And far away from the mystery next door.

"She's gonna know somethings up if we take her on the ferry."

"She may be brilliant but she's still nearly four. She's not going to look beyond the excitement of a trip."

Lexie agreed. "Fine. You get her dressed and I'll get this one ready. You want to come back here before the party?"

"Nah. We can go straight over. Unless Callie calls or something."

"So Zola's gifts go into the car. Check."

"And that scotch for Derek."

She mocked saluted and hefted up their smallest, who would probably end up being their largest daughter. Mark followed her up the stairs but veered right into Sofia's room. It wasn't as "homey" as her room at Callie's. She had some clothes and toys, but her favorites were all at her home. The walls were a cloying shade of pink because Lexie had tried to bridge the gap between Callie and her mother and come away from the experience sour and with a plethora of pink crap for their kid. And there was that photo of Callie, Mark, Sofia and Arizona. Someone had taken it at the NICU. They were all in their pink gowns and Robbins had managed to wrestle their daughter away from Callie, who looked like she'd been hit by a truck three months earlier.

It was a pretty terrible photo for everyone actually. Mark was too skinny and looked kind of loopy and Robbins, he knew for a fact, had been exhausted planning a wedding and caring for a fiancé with a TBI and a baby in the NICU. It showed really only in her smile. Robbins had always looked all fresh and well rested in those days, with just that tired smile hinting at the fatigue weighing her down.

And as awful as they all looked it was one of only a handful of photos of all of them together. Lexie had insisted on it when he'd broached the subject and she'd chosen that one. "It's the only one where you guys are letting Arizona hold her."

That wasn't entirely true, but her point **had** been made.

And now Robbins was back. Was she going to be a mom? Would she take a backseat like Lexie often did? Would she be some cool aunt or the one Sofia sought when she scraped her knee?

How was she going to fit? How were they all going to fit in this new world her sudden…aliveness had created?

And…wait.

Why wasn't Sofia in her room?

His eyes sought the window and as soon as they latched onto the world outside he heard the back door slam shut.

Shit.

####

They made a plan. Not a perfect one or even an official one. Just more of an list they could expand on later. Meet Sofia, see her parents, deal with the tiny enclave of vans outside looking for an interview, get Arizona employed back at Seattle Grace.

It was all the natural stuff that needed to be done.

After what felt like hours of talking Arizona's stomach made a violently loud noise and Callie went downstairs to cook a breakfast beyond Oreos because "you need real food. Cookies and coffee don't count."

Arizona had had an urge at that moment to run out the door. She didn't know why. Callie suggested making food and made it clear Arizona didn't really have a choice in the matter and all Arizona wanted to do was run.

Her heart even started racing. Adrenalin flowed through her. Muscles tensed in anticipation.

"I'm gonna get cleaned up while you cook," she said. That seemed to be acceptable. Callie smiled. Kissed her on the forehead and left the room.

Arizona threw up all the Oreos and coffee and then sat in the scalding hot shower until she was red all over. And even after getting completely clean and changed into new clothes she still had the urge to run and she still thought she was going to throw up and the wonderful house Callie built felt like it was going to collapse around her.

She was there. That compound on the edge of two countries so far removed from the world that there was no law but what one man had made. Callie told her she was going to eat "real food" and Arizona was sent across the world.

She wanted…she didn't know what she wanted. She wanted to hold onto Callie and be back in Seattle. And she wanted to curl up in the corner of the closet surrounded by her wife's clothes and calm the jackhammering of her heart and God, God she wanted to run.

Frying eggs and more fresh coffee distracted her. The smell coming up from downstairs. Distant like when her mom would make breakfast and tell her and Tim to get ready for school or they'd be dead.

It was normal. Not a monster exercising his control. It was maternal. That was what Callie was doing. She was being maternal. "Real food" was something her mom would have said before sticking half a grapefruit in front of her. There would have been no argument and Arizona wouldn't have had this insane urge.

"Real life," she whispered to the wall. That's where she was. Back in the real world with a real life. A world where wives jokingly said they were going to feed a person and expected no argument because it was normal. Real life. Where heads didn't roll and patients didn't scream and hearts didn't stop as they were squeezed beneath her fingers.

She could do real life.

She walked down the stairs and with every step her heart beat a little more normally. By the time she stepped into the kitchen "real life" was running on loop in her head and her heart was normal and her breath came at a steady pace.

Callie grinned and motioned to a big breakfast of eggs and toast and bacon with coffee **and **orange juice.

Real life.

"This isn't a plate of Oreos," she joked.

"This is better," Callie said. She came around the table and took Arizona by the shoulders and Arizona didn't flinch. In real life people didn't flinch when their spouses touched them. "Sit," she said into her ear. In real life people didn't elbow their wives and scramble away.

Real life.

They ate in fabricated happiness. Callie chewed and smiled and Arizona chewed and tried to keep it down because that was what you did in real life and she just didn't get it. She didn't get all this irrational anxiety. She'd survived. She'd survived and come home and that meant it was over. She was done. She got to live her life. It was supposed to be her reward. She wasn't supposed to be wearing a mask at the breakfast table.

"Your parents get in at two," Callie said.

"Okay." Talking. Talking helped. "They're in San Diego?"

"Hawaii. They moved last year after your dad officially retired."

The Colonel was now the Retired Colonel.

Callie read her mind. "He still makes Mark call him 'The' Colonel though."

"Of course."

If Callie could see what she was thinking did she know what was in Arizona's head? Did she get the nerves unwinding everything that had been put back together after her escape?

Callie frowned.

So she did see it.

"What's wrong?"

Her wife told her she didn't have a choice when it came to breakfast and now Arizona couldn't escape the urge to flee. "Just nervous," she said truthfully. That was important. A good lie had to have a kernel of truth. The bald lies were the ones that led to misery.

Callie reached across the table. "Hey, it's okay."

"I know." She **did** know.

That seemed enough for Callie. She let go and took Arizona's empty plate. "Any ideas for the rest of the morning?"

Arizona wanted to jog. She wasn't a jogger really, and with her leg it would be agony, but she wanted to jog.

No.

Real life.

That list they'd made. An outline of how to live for the next week.

"I want to see Sofia."

Something kind of settled in Callie. Like she'd been holding something and those words allowed her to let go. Her whole body relaxed and from Arizona's vantage point she saw the curve of a smile. "Good," she said.

"Is that okay?"

Callie spun, "Of course it is! No. No I mean it's good you want to see her. I was worried with how tense you've been you might not want to."

Well. Arizona hadn't anticipated that one. She tried not to look taken aback and failed miserably. Callie sighed. "That came out wrong didn't it?"

She nodded.

"I guess I'm nervous too," she said weakly. "I guess, I guess I just really want you to meet our daughter. And I want her to meet you." She sagged against the sink, "I feel sometimes, right now, like I'm living this dream, Arizona, and that any minute I'm going to wake up to real life and you'll be gone."

Callie looked so…scared.

"I guess I just want to fit as much into as little time as possible. Which is weird. Probably unhealthy—"

"Callie." The name spoken Callie went quiet. Arizona tried not to shudder as she took a deep breath. "I kind of get it?" Though Arizona didn't see her world as a dream. It was that compound that wasn't real. A two and a half year nightmare she'd wished each day to rush on by but which had moved so impossibly slow.

Now Arizona actually had time. Time to get better and forge a life. Time to love Callie every day and time to be the mother she'd wanted to be.

Real life wasn't going to be bad. It wasn't going to be days spent wearing a costume to fit into the world. That was the nightmare. The woman at the sink was the reality.

The door to the back yard opened and slammed shut.

Time slowed. Both women turned.

Sofia stood there. She was perfectly still. Close. Real. Not a photo. Not a child in the distance. So close and real she seemed absurd.

And she wasn't looking at Callie.

She was staring at Arizona. Not through her. Not studying her. She was staring **at** her and somehow that was different. Her little heavy brow furrowed. Arizona heard Callie gasp.

This was real life. This was her real daughter. And this was the one reunion she had no idea how to navigate.

"Mama?"


End file.
